Azugirls vs The Black Hole
by X to the Zoltan
Summary: GodzillaDaioh... again. I apologize to the universe. Makes a trilogy with the other two DaiohGodzilla stories, because great trilogies come in threes. And lousy ones, too. Take yer pick. Full summary within.
1. A Very Emo Homecoming

**To Begin**

One – I just _had_ to finish the stupid thing. Ending the last installment with a great big red-dripping question mark was a huge mistake. It goes without saying that this story won't make much sense if you haven't read _Osaka vs. the Space Monster_ and _Chiyo-chan and the Rise of the Destroyers._

Two – It creates a parallel to the Godzilla films that amuses me: the "Just When You Thought We Were Finished" effect. Toho keeps making the "last" Godzilla movie, but do you think they ever really will? I sure hope not.

Three – The challenge of writing a quasi-believable future-fic set in an Azuverse warped by the presence of a 100-meter-tall radioactive dinosaur and repeated alien invasions was just too good to resist. I'm curious to see if I can pull it off.

Four – It's as good as any a way to try and modify my style. For one thing, I'm trying to do away with irritating, overlong and unnecessary Author's Notes. Um…

* * *

The airliner's cabin was practically empty, but that wasn't surprising considering its destination. Passengers were spread out among the rows of seats, running the gamut from drably-suited businessmen to a smattering of more adventurous types, but all seemed to be gripped by the same foreboding. The sun was just setting behind them and they were rushing towards the darkness in more ways than one.

Near the very back, against the wall where the stewardesses couldn't bother her, rested a young woman on the knife's edge of adulthood, who from her appearance could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty-five. Her long, willowy form was folded uncomfortably into the cramped seat, head lolling to the side as she dozed. Orange-red hair spilled down over her narrow shoulders and the back of the chair, gleaming prettily in the sunset's light.

Sadly, even as a weary, caffeine-dependent twenty-something, Chiyo-chan was still terminally cute. Perhaps it was her doom to some day be the cutest septuagenarian that ever lived. She had long since ceased to notice or care about her adorability, taking an attitude of put-upon stoicism that was itself pretty charming.

A long, dark-red coat was draped over her like a blanket, hiding her from the neck down to the tops of her light gray sneakers. At her feet lay a laptop case, its surface festooned with stickers that said various obnoxious, allegedly witty things in English. Many of them were given to her by friends long ago and she'd cheerfully slapped them on before she was able to read them all that well. By the time she'd realized her mistake, the tradition had been established.

Gentle turbulence shook her awake. Chiyo blinked sleepily and pulled off her headphones just in time to hear the captain announce that they would be landing in about ten minutes. After a wistful moment where she almost managed to convince herself that she'd have time to finish her nap, she slapped herself awake and stretched, her spine giving a loud, gritty crack that would have been fitting from a woman twice her age.

Beneath, bronze waves gave way to a similarly gleaming city. Most of the architecture was brand new, which normally would have been heartening, but given this city's recent history it was just a sign of how much had been lost. As they passed over the bay, Chiyo happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be an enormous, scaly sandbar sliding into the depths. This was expected, but jarring all the same.

Fortunately, they landed without her seeing anything else that she'd regret. As the other passengers started to disembark, Chiyo stood and donned her coat with an unconscious flourish. Though it didn't show as she started down into the terminal, she had more to be wary of on this trip than any of her fellow passengers. There were hundreds of things that could go wrong, starting with…

"Ms. Mihama?"

"Ah--y-yes?"

One of the airport security men approached her with a clip-board. His face would have been bland and unintimidating if not for his sunglasses and what she knew lay behind them. "Are you related to Yasuhiro Mihama?"

"Er, yes. He's my father."

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but we'll have to ask you a few questions. If you would come with me?"

"Of—of course." Chiyo had _known_ that her name would cause trouble, and now it seemed she would find out just how much. The young woman followed after the polite security man, visions of torture racks and hot pokers dancing in her mind…

* * *

…and emerged onto the streets of Shizuoka more than three hours later, looking even more tired and trodden-upon than before. Fortunately, they'd been considerate enough to rescue her bright-red duffel from the baggage claim while questioning her, and now she bent like a reed with its weight over her shoulder.

"That…" she said to the open air, "Was unpleasant."

"I don't doubt it," an amused voice said behind her. She whirled in pleased—but slightly flustered—surprise to face Ohyama, and was shocked anew when she realized that she was now a few centimeters taller than him. He wore a dark blue jacket and jeans, both fairly expensive, and trendy little eyeglasses that went to show that he was fashionable enough to do without peripheral vision. Either he was doing pretty well for himself or he just dressed for the effect.

"Oh- Mister Ohyama!" she gasped, "You didn't… I'm so sorry! You didn't wait all this time for me, did you?"

"I knew they'd do this to you," he replied easily, holding out a hand to accept her duffel. "I've only been here for about forty minutes."

"Oh…" she was too relieved to be upset that he'd intentionally arrived to get her more than two hours late. "I didn't expect them to be so… rigorous. Thank you," she added as he hefted her bag. "I understand that I'm a special case, but…"

"Eh, the jerks come down hard on everyone," Ohyama shrugged. "Guess they have to, when you think about it. How have you been, Chiyo-chan?"

"Oh, you know…" she shrugged bashfully, "School." She didn't really think he wanted to hear all about how she was running herself ragged in the final stretch towards her degree, worried sick about all of her friends back home and slowly becoming disillusioned about life in general.

Ohyama seemed to catch her meaning in any case. "That's all you have to say."

"And how have you been, Mr. Ohyama?"

"Oh, doin' all right," he paused to hit a button on his keychain and a bright green Toyota Supra chirped at them. Chiyo blinked in surprise; it was an old make but very well-kept, and much flashier than she would have expected from a fellow like Ohyama. "My brother and I started this garage a few years back, and we just saved enough for him to go to Law School next year."

"Wow, really? That's great!"

"You'd never take us for gearheads, would you?" He turned the ignition and its engine grumbled with far more power than a compact car ought to have. "It pays the bills, though, and most days it doesn't even feel like work."

"It's so good to hear you're doing well," Chiyo smiled, and for just a moment the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. "You can imagine all the horrible things we were hearing over in the States…"

"I can. But you know, it's not really that bad over here. I haven't kept contact with many people from our old class, but I'm sure they're all just fine."

"Yeah…" Chiyo agreed half-heartedly, smile faltering as she fingered an envelope in her back pocket. As they mounted an interchange, she slid slowly down in her seat and started to drift off again. Not to be rude to her old friend, but she just couldn't keep her eyes open and they were verging on a very uncomfortable subje--

"_What-?_" Chiyo jolted violently awake. Ohyama glanced over in bemusement as she tried to scramble back through her seat. When that didn't work, she finally settled for staring in stupefied shock. "Wh-what the heck is _that?_"

_That_ stood about sixty-five meters tall, thrown into dramatic relief by the city lights. There was no really coherent way to describe it as a creature; perhaps it had been something like a dinosaur at one time, what with its general shape and the sail-like fins rising from its back, but if so, it had since been coated with strange futuristic armor and its forearms replaced with great, scythe-like blades. Its face consisted of a wide squid's beak under some kind of visor, which glowed with a faint- but menacing- red light. The monstrosity stood stock-still as if it were a perfectly natural part of the skyline… and judging from Ohyama's reaction, it was.

"Sorry, I should've warned you," he gave her an apologetic sideways glance. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"I… yeesh! What… what on Earth…?" Chiyo was still hyperventilating, but on her way back down. "It's not… dangerous?"

"Oh, it's _very_ dangerous," Ohyama said grimly. "That's Gigan. He's one of the monsters they used to attack Earth, but now he's just sticking around to keep us under their thumb. Who knows how many people they've killed and they're already selling action figures of the damn things."

"The monsters…" Chiyo turned to watch it as they passed. "They're all _still around?_"

"They haven't gone anywhere, no…" Ohyama turned away from her to hide his look of dull anger. "And as long as they're here, Japan belongs to the Black Hole People."

* * *

_The Black Hole People. Is that what they call themselves?_ Chiyo wondered to herself, watching the city lights rush past her train car. She'd only heard Asia's new masters referred to as "the Gaijin," "the Invaders," or simply "those Bastards." Not a lot of information came out of the occupied areas, especially from Japan, which served as the aliens' inner sanctum.

She got letters from her old friends only rarely, and they were all censored into a million tiny pieces. The messages were always quick to reassure her that they were doing just fine, but in the end did little to alleviate her worries, especially since none of them ever gave any sign that they'd received her responses.

It had been two long years since the invasion of the Gaijin and the dark days that followed. If she closed her eyes, Chiyo could still feel that clawing dread and see the visions of her friends in peril that had tortured her every night. She'd sobbed for relief with the letter from Yomi that had broken the silence, and since then managed to tenuously lead her life in the States, living on the scraps of news that made it to her.

Outside, the lights faded as they passed into the countryside.

Without thought, she slid the envelope from her back pocket and turned it over in her hands. Her first and only letter from Ayumu, and very nearly coherent (perhaps the censor had been having an off-day). Made up of loose and sketchy but surprisingly legible handwriting, it had been the straw that broke the camel's back. It finally convinced her that the danger of being a Mihama, the very daughter of the man that had led Japan's war against the Invaders, was not enough to keep her away.

Like all the others, Ayumu had started by telling her that everything was alright, but it wasn't long before she'd ruined the effect by admitting that really _nothing_ was alright and she didn't know what she was going to do or where to turn. Reading it had given Chiyo an awful, bitter feeling like acid rolling sluggishly down the inside of her chest… oh, but the very worst part had been when she noticed the return address.

Chiyo leaned back heavily and gazed at the ceiling. Set everything right, eh? Ridiculous! There was nothing she could do, and she wouldn't know how to begin even if there were. Just _thinking_ about the mess fate had made of her world filled her with heavy weariness. But then, she admitted as her eyes eased shut again, most things did these days…

* * *

"I'm sorry," Ayumu said with a rueful smile, "This must be awful uncomfortable."

"N-no, not at all," Chiyo waved her concern away, trying to hide a massive yawn. It was nearing midnight and she was still beat in spite of having slept all day. When they'd hugged, she felt like she was just going to crumple over the smaller woman and conk out right then and there. "I can't tell you how nice it is to see you again."

Ayumu Kasuga had hardly changed at all, though her expression was a tiny bit more pensive and sad. Too, now that Chiyo looked closer, there were faint worry lines under her eyes, but they vanished with her smile. "Holy cow, did you ever shoot up over there! Ya think it's something in the water…? Or, no, I remember now!" Her tone became mock-creepy. "It was the evil of Sakaki the Height Vampire! You musta grown up once you escaped her clutches!"

Her grin didn't falter, but Chiyo slouched unconsciously. Nowadays, Ayumu barely stood up to her shoulder. "I think I remember that. But didn't we decide that she wasn't…?"

"Maybe it's a good thing she sucked so much a' your height away… otherwise, you'd'a ended up lookin' like Kareem Abdul Jabbar!"

The younger girl laughed out loud at that. One of her first memories of her friends in America was hanging out with them and watching that guy trade blows with Bruce Lee at the end of _Game of Death_. "Oh, yikes! _I'm _sure relieved, then!"

Ayumu giggled as well, but the sound was unpracticed. It seemed that the Osakan gal didn't have much to laugh about 'round these parts. The room they sat in was arranged like your average apartment, done in soft colors that gave it a pleasant, open ambiance. It would take most people a moment to notice the subtle differences; no sharp edges on any of the furniture, all of which was firmly affixed to the floor, no knives in the kitchenette, walls that weren't blatantly padded but could obviously take a hit…

And most tellingly, the door didn't lock from the inside.

_Oh, Ms. Osaka… how did you end up in a place like this? _That mournful thought didn't manage to break through to Chiyo's surface, but her friend seemed to pick up on it anyway. When the mental image of a towering, glowering, sunglass-ed Chiyo putting a Size 13 footprint on Blue Three's chest faded, their expressions fell and the silence stretched uncomfortably.

"I guess… I guess you're wonderin' what happened, eh?"

"Well…" Chiyo suddenly couldn't bring herself to meet her friend's eyes. "To be honest…"

"I don't know what, really… came first…" Ayumu looked to the side, bangs hiding her face. "There was the egg, an' then… but it shouldn'ta… I'm, I'm sorry, Chiyo-chan. I never shoulda bothered ya. You came all this way because of the letter, didn't you?"

"Actually," the prodigy started, but choked herself off. She couldn't lie. "…yes. But please, don't think that you caused me any trouble or-"

"I at least owe ya an explanation," Ayumu insisted. "It's just, I'm don't think I got one ta give. Y'see, I… I… _remember_." The word fell heavily.

"You remember?"

"Yes! I remember… but… but I don't know _what_ it is that I remember! An' it's, it's been eating at me all this time! I just… I _know_… that it's really important, that, that it tells me if I really _am _me, but I just can't…!" Tears were tracking down her cheeks now, but she didn't seem to notice them. "Aw, crud. I'm not makin' any sense, am I?"

Instead of answering, Chiyo crossed the table and knelt beside her so that they were eye-to-eye. "It's okay, Ms. Ayumu."

"No," she sniffled deeply, "It isn't. I'm… in shreds. But, but ya gotta believe me, Chiyo-chan… I wasn't always crazy! The voices I heard, they were real! I don't know anymore, wh-what is or isn't, but once…"

"I understand," Chiyo said gently, taking her hands. "Really, I do."

"But now, I'm jus' so messed up," Ayumu shook her head. "Y'know, sometimes- _aheh!_ Sometimes I think back, and I remember us… oh, God, this is so stupid… I convince myself that we stopped an invasion of blue-skinned aliens who were using a golden, three-headed dragon to attack Sendai!"

"Um…" Chiyo looked at the floor. "Ms. Ayumu? We, um… that really happened."

"What?" Ayumu's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Y-you're kiddin'! Really?"

"It did."

"No way! You're just messing with me!"

"You know I wouldn't do that, Ms. Ayumu."

The Osakan gave a small, disbelieving laugh. "You know, I don't know what I know anymore. If somethin' like _that_ is really true, then maybe… so, so could you really fly with those, uh… those thingers on your head?"

"Huh?"

"The, uh," Ayumu put her hands on either side of Chiyo's head and flapped them.

"My… pigtails?"

"Yeah! Yeah, that's it!"

Well. There went _that_ glimmer of hope. Chiyo floundered for a few seconds before finally admitting, "Um… no. I… I don't think I ever did that. I'm sorry."

"Shucks. I always _did_ have trouble keepin' my dreams an' reality separate, though."

"It's been a lot harder ever since Sendai," Chiyo said understandingly. What _was_ this? Ayumu seemed sad and desperately confused, but not psychotic! Why in the world was she being _kept_ like this? And what was with her eyes? They were always a little unfocused and misty, but now they seemed even more so. Almost as if she were sleep deprived as well, or—Chiyo fought down an irrational burst of anger--_medicated_.

"Please, don't be mad at them for me," Ayumu squeezed her hands. "I mean, 'least I'm safe, right?"

"But…" Anger fled, leaving Chiyo empty. "What about the others? Weren't any of them there for you? What about Yomi, or Sakaki, or Tomo…?"

"Oh," Ayumu smiled sadly. "Tomo-chan was always there for me. She was wonderful."

"B-but where is she now?"

"You didn't know? Tomo-chan… she's gone."

* * *

Chiyo emerged unsteadily into the corridor and leaned against the wall, trembling, eyes wide and vacant. Gone? What did she mean, _gone?_ It couldn't possibly mean what it very obviously did.

"Are you all right, Miss?" her escort, one of the nursing assistants, asked kindly.

"Y-yes. I'm sorry." Chiyo straightened herself and followed him down a dimly lit hall. The spaces between rooms were very pleasant as well, rife with this sort of creaky, grandfatherly ambiance. The large room where the tenants often took their meals and held social events was positively beautiful, and the whole place seemed arranged to give all who entered a sense of peace and well being.

It wasn't working at all.

"Excuse me," Chiyo asked, still dazed, "May I ask you something about Ms. Kasuga?"

"Uh, sure."

"Why is she here?"

"Well," he seemed on the verge of holding his peace, but continued with an effort. "You caught her on a good day. Most of the time she does pretty well, but she has these… breakdowns. Every two or three weeks, it seems like."

Chiyo swallowed. "Breakdowns."

"Yeah, if that's the word for it. She doesn't become violent, though, it's almost as if something's attacking _her_. Oh, but I wouldn't worry, Miss… the doctors here are the best in Japan, and if they can't help her, there's no one who can."

"Ah… th-thank you." Chiyo's weariness reached a new peak. About to conk out? Forget that, she was just going to skip it and fall over dead. _Gone…

* * *

_

Even though their letters were passing through the butchering blades of 'Washington Irving,' (the censors _never_ put their real names), Chiyo had still managed to arrange for a place to stay during her visit. Her voyage took her by taxi into Tama Ward, down the shadowy streets of a nice little suburb that had been carved out a tract of unspoiled forest only recently. The place had the feel of a rural neighborhood, though it was hard to be fooled with the lights of Tokyo garishly painting the 2 AM sky.

With a tortured grunt, she hauled her duffel from the taxi's trunk and started unsteadily down a long driveway. The house she trundled towards was small, tasteful and unassuming, exactly the sort of digs she expected its owner to choose. Trees still crawled up between the houses and screened them from each other. This area would be a wonderful home for…

Chiyo stopped dead, bending even more pathetically under her bag's weight. A large cat, at least half a meter long without counting his short tail, padded silently into the middle of the driveway and sat down in her path. His coat was dusty tan, covered in dark brown spots, and he stared at her sharply with wide, gleaming yellow eyes.

"You've grown up too, huh?" She knelt, sloughing the bag off and setting her laptop case down. But when she reached out to him, the great cat just backed away from her. "Aww, you don't recognize me? I guess I can't blame you… sometimes _I _don't recognize me."

Slowly, warily, the beast came closer, finally drawing near enough to sniff at her outstretched fingers. Before he could render his judgment, though, the house's front door opened and he bounded back towards it, going from fierce predator to playful kitten in an instant. He swished eagerly around his master's legs as she emerged, but for once her attention was elsewhere.

In spite of Chiyo's newfound height, Sakaki still looked enormous to her. She stood silhouetted in the doorway, dressed in a dark green turtleneck and blue jeans, half-bending to scratch Maya's ears distractedly. Even with the distance between them, Chiyo could see that she was a little haggard herself; she'd obviously waited up in spite of the fact that Chiyo knew how hard they worked her as a veterinary assistant and specifically asked her not to.

(In a brief, astronomically expensive phone call before the trip, Sakaki had told her where she kept a spare key so that she could let herself in. In retrospect, Chiyo realized that this hadn't been a smart move, as the call had probably been tapped by at least three separate agencies and illegally besides.)

Sakaki's beautiful raven hair was even longer and her expression even more grave than in their High School days, but she still carried herself with a soft and gentle air. Chiyo wordlessly closed the distance between them and they hugged, Maya pawing jealously at their calves. After a few seconds, the prodigy went limp in her arms and let out a long sigh.

"That bad?" Sakaki asked sympathetically.

Chiyo mumbled something into her chest.

"Am I going to have to put you to bed?" That time, her deep voice held a faint trace of humor.

"It'd be nice, thank you…" Catlike, Chiyo seemed to become about two kilos heavier. Sakaki took three awkward steps with the girl draped over her before Chiyo hopped back with a soft giggle and started back for her bag. "Sorry."

Sakaki shook herself mentally; after years of professionally handling small, adorable, fluffy creatures, she had mostly overcome her "cuteness overload syndrome," but it was still possible to blindside her. And she _definitely_ wasn't expecting her young friend to be every bit as cute as she had been nearly eight years ago (though it was a different flavor of cute, to be sure).

"Hup!" Chiyo hauled the duffel skyward yet one last time and was nearly overbalanced by it. After a Sakaki helped her wrestle it into the house, the younger woman thanked her politely, said that she looked forward to talking with her in the morning and then collapsed bonelessly on the couch, out like a light before she even landed.

Sakaki gazed at her fondly, marveling at the fact that they had finally met again in spite of their separate busy lives and the trifling matter of their homeland's conquest by alien invaders. Finally, though, she switched off the lights and turned in; she had to leave for work in less than five hours, after all.

* * *

The moon hung heavily over Birth Island, pouring gorgeous silvery light over its ugly landscape of broken, lifeless rock. In the distance, a town on the mainland glowed like a beacon over the ocean. If ever there was an island that nobody in the world had any good reason to visit, this was it.

But now a small boat bobbed away from it, bearing a frightened young woman that had done her part in this little drama and now didn't need to do anything more than lie low and hope for the best. There had been no funny business with tests, alternative guardians or reincarnation this time; the proper Soul of Light had been called upon and carried out her duties admirably.

A pearly egg, smooth and bright against the jagged dark stones, quickly grew as the creature within neared its cataclysmic birth. And in its shadow, two tiny, identical women watched the boat disappear into the night. "It was boring this time," the twin on the left complained.

"It went exactly the way it was supposed to," her sister corrected.

"Exactly. She wasn't nearly as interesting as that Kasuga girl."

"Honestly, sister, I think that I could do with less objects of interest in our life. You realize that absolutely nothing has gone to plan since that one came along?"

"It's hardly her fault. If anything, it's on us."

"But even _this_ time things went awry. There was nothing wrong with the Soul, but Mothra has never been weaker! I can't help but think that there's something… screwing with us."

"It'll work itself out," Lefty said airily. "I'm sure this is all to a purpose."

"But we're the ones who make the purposes! _We're _the shadowy manipulators!"

"Sometimes I wonder." The Shobijin suddenly cocked her head to the side, looking troubled. "Oh… do you hear that?"

The sisters stood in silence for a few seconds. "Yes. It's faint…"

"A spirit is crying out. _Nothing is right_…"

"It's such a sad voice, such despair… but beneath it, the promise of rage…"

"The promise of _battle_…"

"But who will answer?"

Lefty looked out over the ebon waves. "Who indeed?"


	2. A Very Long Morning

It was that bloody dream again. Ayumu _knew_ it was a dream, but she couldn't stop herself from being terrified all the same. She stood on the street outside of her old house in Osaka, surrounded by faceless dream-people, fellow Osakans, watching the sky expectantly. She knew that they would all die very shortly, but she couldn't make herself move or tell them to run. Every time it came to this, she foolishly managed to convince herself that this waiting was the worst part.

From below as it hurtled overhead, the thing just looked like a great big disk, though on other nights she'd seen it in different forms. It trailed a cloud of thick mist that slowly rolled down towards the crowds. Ayumu gasped as it settled over her and the burning started.

The people around her started to run and scream, but it was too late--she could already feel her skin sizzling away in gruesome detail. Holding her breath desperately, she staggered towards her house as blood poured into her eyes, confident that she would be safe if only she could make it home, if only she could…

But then her lungs gave out and she drew a deep breath of the vile air. With a tortured squeak, Ayumu fell backwards, trailing an arc of blood from her mouth--and was suddenly in bed, shaking fiercely and still burning all over. As she started to sit up, a cool hand rested on her wrist, instantly banishing the acidic pain.

"That again?" Tomo asked softly.

Ayumu looked around the apartment's small bedroom, and the twin-sized bed that she platonically shared (if "sharing" described their fierce nocturnal battles for the covers) with her roommate. It was dark; all she could make out past the other girl was a great smear of shadow. "Y-yeah…"

"C'mere," Tomo said, shooting for gruffness but not even halfway there. She held the covers open and Ayumu folded gratefully into her arms, still shaking. "Don't worry, Ayumu… he didn't get you. He's gone. Nothing will happen. We're safe, I promise."

Ayumu _had_ made it home, safe and warm. She finally relaxed, whispering, "Thank you." She would have to thank Tomo now, for she always left by the time Ayumu was up in the morning and unfailingly refused to acknowledge her own kindness. The one time she'd managed to get the Takinator to admit to helping her at all, she'd just looked embarrassed and muttered something about not being able to sleep with all the whimpering.

"Thank you," Ayumu whispered again…

...and then woke up for real, curled up alone on her cold mattress. _Huh, _her sleep-fogged mind managed, _Tomo-chan musta gone to work already, _before she drifted off again. Starting her day a few hours later, Ayumu would only remember that she had had a pleasant dream.

* * *

"Aaah… this is the life, isn't it?" Kazuki sighed happily. He wore a pair of green jeans and a charcoal gray T-shirt, leaning back on a lawn-chair with his knees drawn up and a sketch pad resting across them. Above, the early-morning sky matched his shirt, misty, cool and promising rain as a butterscotch light grew over the ocean.

"Too early," Sanada forced out through a massive yawn, sitting heavily on his own lawn chair. He wore a red sweater against the morning chill. The young men were on the roof of a tall apartment building in Chiba, looking out over the city as it slowly lightened. "You do this every morning?"

"I do my best work before I'm fully awake."

"Huh." Sanada leaned back. "I guess it is pretty nice up here. Feels like we're above the smog, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Kazuki tore his drawing off and crumpled it up. "Oh, my. This seems to be an off-day for me. Maybe I should have let Osamu have this one…"

"Tough commission?" the taller boy asked, unwrapping a sandwich and taking up a bottle of cola. It was his day off; he wasn't quite sure why he wasn't still in bed.

"Not too. I could give them a dozen logos they'd take, but I can't think of anything that would be _right_ for them."

"Osamu doesn't seem to worry about stuff like that."

"Oh, Osamu, Osamu," Kazuki chuckled, pencil whipping all over the page, "He's not in it for the art. Just something to pay the bills while he's chasing those theories of his…"

"Nn…" Sanada took a bite of his sandwich and grunted distastefully. "The scary part is, he's usually right."

"Well, he was wrong about Dr. Mifune and his dinosaur mind-control."

"I don't remember that one."

"Really? Osamu left no stone unturned in his search for Truth that time. He accused the guy's daughter of being a cyborg and everything! I was very proud of him." Kazuki's mouth snapped shut as a sweet-smelling breeze rolled over them. "Oh…! Is that…?"

"Jasmine?" Sanada asked as something softly scraped the roof between them. The sweet smell grew stronger as he was thrown into the shadow of what appeared to be a canvas or kite. After that impression, his brain sort of froze for a few seconds until the whatever-it-was had passed and the sun fell on him again.

"That was his leg, wasn't it?" Kazuki asked calmly. "On the roof, there."

"Wha… huh?" Sanada snapped out of his stupor and finally saw what had flown over their heads. Some kind of… it was shaped like a moth (colossal, of course… weren't there any _small_ monsters anymore?), but its body was covered by ugly, angular armor, with narrow, bright-green eyes glaring over a mosquito-like proboscis. Its great, jagged wings were edged with the same poisonous green, but on the inside they were painted in pretty twilight colors, a festive pattern in somber hues. "That's the--! He's--! We almost--!"

Kazuki looked at him dryly. "Sanada needs to learn what to freak out over."

"But it just… he…!" Sanada pointed at the long scuff mark between them, apparently left by one of its terrible claws. "We coulda been killed!"

"No, no, no, it's not his time."

"Huh? His--?"

"Osamu told me about that guy," Kazuki was looking after the beast, but his hands kept on drawing. "They're calling him Gigamoth or something stupid like that. He only attacks the aliens, and it's on a schedule…"

"A schedule…?"

"Yep. He just appears and disappears… look, he's doing it now…" Sanada looked again, but the creature had already faded away. "Just a few days ago he picked a fight with one of their monsters, and he always waits, like, half a month, maybe three weeks before he attacks again. Nobody knows why."

Sanada nearly laughed in disbelief. What a crazy place the world had become.

"Looked like he was searching for something, didn't it? I always wonder why he flies around like that… it's kinda sad, really."

Sanada stood up, still shaken. "Heartbreaking. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my breakfast downstairs…"

* * *

Chiyo made a brief, unsuccessful foray into wakefulness around the time Sakaki rose for work. She didn't even really manage to get eyes open before she realized that this one was a no-go, but as she lay there waiting to fall asleep, she heard a series of deep thumps working their way across the floor nearby. She knew that it was somebody walking in sneakers, but she couldn't help but be reminded of the distinctive kettle-drum sound of Godzilla's awesome tread.

"They're beautiful, Mr. Takeda," she heard Sakaki say.

"Takeshi, please," a deep voice responded. "We're on a first-name basis by now, aren't we?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I guess I should let you get to work. Just thought I'd stop by and bring you these. See ya 'round, little lady."

"See you, Takeshi," Sakaki's voice seemed as level as ever, but Chiyo could pick out in it how absurdly pleased she was at being called 'little lady.' The Godzilla-like footsteps picked their way lightly over the prodigy where she lay, and their owner was gone. _I'm gonna have to ask about that guy,_ she mused before Morpheus took her once more.

* * *

And across Tokyo at exactly 7:23, an alarm bleated to life and was instantly pounded into submission. Fortunately, its owner showed a bit more willpower than Chiyo, rising and starting her shower before 7:25. Her expression suggested that she was done with being a young woman, but her face and figure begged to differ.

With the speed of long practice, she tied her unruly mane of brown hair up into a neat bun and donned a sharp green suit with heels. On her way out she snatched up a pair of glasses from the nightstand and rubbed them on her suit-jacket absently. It was going to be another long and busy day…

But when she opened her front door to leave, a friend stood on the door step, hand raised on the verge of knocking. "You've got to be kidding me," she said flatly, making to shut the door again.

"What?" Kagura asked innocently. "What kind of greeting is that, Yomi?"

"You don't want to go on another run, do you?"

Kagura looked down at herself, as if just realizing that she was wearing windpants and a running jacket. Her jagged hair was in the same style as it had been in high school, now held back from her face by a sweatband. "Oh, no. I wasn't gonna drag you along. I just thought I'd stop by and see ya before work."

"Well, I was just leaving…"

"Oh, c'mon, Yomi. I know you don't have to be there for another hour. I'll bet you haven't eaten breakfast yet, either."

"Well, I…"

Kagura crossed her arms and looked at her severely. "Come on, now."

"Well…" Yomi pursed her lips. She'd been so caught up in her routine that she hadn't noticed her own hunger. "Fine, you win. Want some waffles?"

"Uh, sure," Kagura agreed, acting for all the world as if that hadn't been her ulterior motive all along. And who knows, perhaps it wasn't; certain _other_ friends had made Yomi a little cynical about these things. "That'd be great, thanks."

"Well, come on in, then…" Yomi said resignedly.

Kagura casually kicked off her shoes and wandered in. "Hey, you redecorated, eh? Nice, nice." In truth, the place was just barely shy of seeming like a prison cell of some kind, but she knew that her friend was almost never here anyway. "Got some good Fung Shui goin' on here, I see…"

Yomi knew sarcasm when she heard it. Oh, but she'd get yelled at enough later, so rather than getting snippy, she chose to change the subject. "It's been a while, Kagura. Is something on your mind?"

"Well, yeah, actually…" Kagura looked hesitant.

As long as her schedule was screwed up, Yomi decided to outdo herself. While the instant waffles were being pressed, she tossed down some scrambled eggs and bacon as well. If Koyomi Mizuhara would be forced to eat breakfast, then by God it would be a feast! And… perhaps she was just a _little_ happy to have a guest again after so long, too. "So what is it, then?"

"It's, uh… do you remember Chiyo-chan?"

"Of course I do! How could I forget her?"

"Well… I know how you've been sorta trying to leave the rest of us behind since, well…" Kagura stumbled over herself. "Since…"

"Since Tomo?" Yomi asked frostily. "You're being stupid."

Kagura winced, but pressed on. "You can't deny it. Sakaki hardly hears from you either, and you never write Ayumu, and…" Her tirade was cut off by a plate slamming down on the table before her. Ah, yes. Prepared with love, that.

"You don't understand," Yomi said. "I haven't been seeing _anyone_ lately, not just you guys. I've been busy as all hell, and… and for the love of mike, do you _have_ to do that?"

Kagura looked up from spreading catsup over her waffle. "What? I like it." She blorted another dollop onto her scrambled eggs and started stirring it in with her fork.

"Well, I've been busy," Yomi finished weakly.

"Busy…" Kagura shook her head sharply. "You've been _making_ yourself busy, Yomi, I can see it from here. Well, I was going to try and arrange to get together with Chiyo-chan while she's here, but it looks like you're too…"

"Chiyo-chan's _here?_" Yomi gasped. "The little imbecile! Is she _trying _to get herself killed? I'm amazed she didn't get shot the instant she stepped off of the plane!"

"What?" _Not_ the reaction Kagura was expecting. "No, look, things aren't as tense with the aliens as they used to be…"

"No, they're _worse!_" Yomi set her own plate down and promptly forgot it. "I work with Those Bastards every day! Do you have any idea what's going on in that crazy bureaucracy of theirs? There are _factions_, Kagura, and you don't want to know what some of them are out for! I've met at least four people _this week_ that would _love_ to have her head on a platter! And that's not counting the ones that would just want her for a hostage!"

Kagura blinked at her. "Well, look, she's not dead yet. I just…"

Yomi sat down heavily. "Damn, damn, damn… so what did she come back for, anyway? What was so important that she had to risk turning up in a ditch somewhere?"

"Dunno, Sakaki didn't tell me. But if I can swing it, do you want to see if we can all have dinner or something?"

"I…" Yomi waved helplessly. "Sure."

"I think you're overreacting, Yomi."

"I wish I was, too."

* * *

Sakaki only had to work for a few hours that day, so her guest was still sleeping when she returned. Chiyo, having apparently managed to change at some point and fallen off the couch at some other, was strewn artlessly across the living room floor in a blue T-shirt and heart-printed boxers, snoring quietly, stringy limbs sprawling all over the place and the covers Sakaki had given her twisted around her legs.

Maya padded up to the young prodigy, looked her over, then gave his master a look that said, "I've been putting up with this crap _all day_," before heading out into the backyard to hunt for mice.

Sakaki sat down and considered. She looked so peaceful lying there, and it would be a shame to disturb her… but then again, it was almost 4 pm. Chiyo probably wouldn't be happy to lose a whole day, regardless of how well she slept. And so, reluctantly, the giantess knelt and shook her shoulder gently. "Chiyo-chan?"

Chiyo swatted drowsily at her and said something in English, then tried to roll away, which didn't work since one of her legs was still up on the couch.

"Chiyo-chan, you should probably get up."

One light brown eye half-opened… then suddenly she jerked awake, lunging to her knees awkwardly. "Ack! I'm--I'm sorry, Ms. Sakaki!" she cried anxiously, "That was so rude of me!"

Sakaki gave a faint, reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I didn't understand."

"Oh…" Chiyo sagged so far with relief that it looked like she was going to collapse again. "I just… I thought you were my roommate for a moment, and…" the rest of her explanation was lost in a jaw-creaking yawn. She still wasn't rested, the poor thing… what had she been _doing_ to herself in the States?

"Take this," Sakaki offered her a small can. "I think you'll need it."

"Thank you." Chiyo accepted the can, cracked it and took a small sip without looking. "YOW! Great Scott! Wh-what the heck is this?" She held it out to read its label, but her hands were shaking too badly. "My heart is racing!"

Keeping her amusement carefully hidden (though Chiyo saw it anyway), Sakaki answered, "Energy drink."

"Oh…" Chiyo swallowed a few times. "It's pretty p-potent."

"Sorry."

"No, I think I needed it. Thank you, Ms. Sakaki." She stood and stretched, her joints cracking and popping so excruciatingly that Sakaki had to look away, in spite of the fact that she'd unflinchingly helped to set a large dog's broken leg not an hour before. Chiyo didn't even seem to notice them, though. "What time is it?"

"About four." Seeing her immediate reaction, Sakaki moved to head off any self-recrimination. "I can tell you needed the sleep. You're still fatigued."

Chiyo lowered her head and smiled tiredly. "I've just been a mess lately…"

"I understand."

It was then that Chiyo noticed something odd. She had expected to be boiling over at this point, desperately eager to tell Sakaki every little detail of her life in the States and to hear of hers in return, but actually standing here with her friend was an entirely different experience. Something of the other woman's mellow quiet seemed to be wafting into her; no doubt their stories would be told in good time, but there was no rush.

For her part, Sakaki was interested in learning what sort of young woman Chiyo had become, but she found that she could wait as well. At first she'd worried; their meeting the night before had been less than heartening. But now Chiyo was looking more and more like her old self… if quite a bit bigger.

"Kagura called me at work," Sakaki said. "Would you like to have dinner with her and Yomi tonight?"

"Oh, that would be great!" Chiyo chirped. "I haven't heard from those two for months! But what about To…?" Memory returned. "…oh."

Sakaki bit her lip, but otherwise her expression was as placid as ever. At this point, most people would probably have tried to explain what had happened, make a lame attempt to change the subject or launch into some kind of meaningless platitude meant to comfort her. Almost _anybody_ would have said something in spite of the fact that there was nothing to be said that would be welcome.

As ever, though, Sakaki offered nothing more than her presence. And as ever, Chiyo was more than glad to accept.

* * *

The Black Hole People was quite a ridiculous title, in truth. When the world was done being traumatized by their invasion, there would probably be a lot of jokes at their expense… history students in a hundred years would remember these dark days as the time when the world had lived a B-Movie.

Still, the name was fitting enough. They had migrated here after their world was consumed by the black hole that had been an object of worship there for hundreds of years… but the vast, Star Trek-ian epic of their history is completely irrelevant to this story. They only became important to our heroines and Earth at large when it started raining giant monsters.

However, once their dominion had spread over most of Asia, the BHP's advance halted for reasons unknown. Now their Supreme Commander was even speaking of "balance" with the Earthmen, and sharing the world in peaceful coexistence. His second-in-command, however, did not agree with this policy.

He stood on the observation deck of the Black Hole mothership, which had hung ominously over Downtown Tokyo until it had become a fixture in the sky and not quite so ominous anymore, staring down at the city in contempt. To the profound relief of his staff, he was long past making "just look at them down there" speeches, though.

Like the rest of his people, he could have passed for a human if his eyes were covered. They were darker than a human's eyes… rather than whites, they had light-grays, and his irises were so deeply green as to be almost black. He was tall and athletic; perhaps he would have been handsome had his features not been so cruel. This was Masema, Lord Captain Commander of the Black Hole Armada.

"You're not content with it, are you, Masema?" a soft, melodious voice commented.

He turned sharply; how did Yukia manage to sneak up on him like that? She was a small woman, standing barely to his chest, with long dark hair that mostly hid her face. No great loss, as far as he was concerned; her countenance was unremarkable except for her huge, luminous eyes. They were darkly violet, which was an oddity among the Black Hole People, not that it was the strangest thing about her.

"Filthy roaches…" Masema agreed, sneering down at the scurrying population below. "I'm sure the Earth would thank us for sweeping them away, and yet our wonderful Supreme Commander natters on and on about how we have to share it with them."

"You hope for war, then?" Yukia asked, leaning on the pane beside him.

"I would go down there with a knife and start the work myself," the Lord Captain Commander affirmed. "If I had some way of countering this mythical superweapon the Earthmen have. Even if this… 'Dimension Tide' doesn't exist, the belief in it could poison our people and cripple us anyway."

"What if I were to tell you that I had a way to start your war with the Earthmen… and win it?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"I'll tell you soon enough. Before we do anything, I need to go to the surface for a bit." Yukia started away again, "I have someone to see down there before I'll know if we can pull this off or not."

"Oh?" Masema was too intrigued to be annoyed at the delay.

"Yes, it's a…" she turned back and gave him a guarded little smirk. "A family matter."


	3. Spirits Rise and Fall

"You can't lie to me, you lack-witted rube!" Yomi's visitor yelled, "I know you Earthmen are hiding the truth from us!"

Yomi took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose in unabashed irritation. The gesture was unworthy of a seasoned diplomat, but she'd been running on empty even before the man's arrival. "High stress" failed to quite encompass her work here at the embassy; "cuts five years off the end of your life" was more like it.

The Mighty Bespectacled One had always had a certain knack for figuring out the motivations of others and understanding people who were completely different from herself. On top of that, _certain_ experiences had stretched her patience to nigh-superhuman levels by the time she'd graduated. Though it had never been her ambition to be any sort of politician, the life of a diplomat was what the education of her third-choice college had best prepared her for, and it would be foolish to overlook her obvious talents. Oh, well, _c'est la vie_.

But now her internship had ended… not with a happy promotion and being sent to the embassy in France, which she'd secretly been looking forward to, but rather with most of her superiors stepped on by Gigan, quitting in disgust or fired by the conquerors for political reasons. Instead of representing her nation to an exotic but basically friendly other nation, she was forced to represent her planet to hostile aliens. Even _with_ those freaky incidents concerning the Xians behind her, this was something she never expected.

Yomi was only one of several dozen intermediaries, but it often felt like she was facing this vast and horrible _other_ completely alone, especially when idiots like this guy came through. As it turned out, the Black Hole People had their fare share of conspiracy theorists as well, though unfortunately none of them seemed to be as polished, methodical _or_ intelligent as Osamu.

"We aren't hiding anything," she said tiredly. "We don't know ourselves."

"Falsehood! If he's not out there, then why don't you explain _this?_" The Gaijin slapped a photocopied picture down on her desk. She put her glasses back on to look at it; the image was a dead creature that had washed up on a beach somewhere, apparently. Tiny human figures gathered around it gave a sense of scale.

"I give. What is this?"

"That, woman, is the proof of his existence! It is one of the huge iguana creatures that live in your oceans." Now that she looked closer, Yomi recognized it; the first had appeared in America around 1998, and since then the beasties had been a thorn in the collective side of the world's militaries. "It washed ashore near Nagasaki with a broken neck! What on Earth could do such a thing apart from your legendary Monster King, eh?"

"Maybe it fell down the stairs." Being sarcastic in this setting was frowned on, but he'd already wasted an hour she didn't have. "Sir, I've told you everything about him that we know… the last time he appeared, he fell into a pool of the most powerful acid in existence. That's about as near to being proven dead as you can hope for."

"But you've never presented us with remains!"

"Activated micro-oxygen can dissolve steel if you give it long enough," Yomi rubbed her eyes, fighting back a growing headache. "It's not likely there'd be anything to find… and even your sea-serpent, uh, Manda? Even Manda can't explore that part of the bay yet in any case. It will be years before we can look for remains."

The Gaijin finally stood to leave, dark yellow eyes flashing. "You haven't seen the last of me, Koyomi Mizuhara! I'm going to bring down this whole filthy conspiracy, starting with you!"

"Yeah, good luck with that," she said to his retreating back. When he had finally stormed out, the Ambassador came in and sat across from Yomi. He was the last of the Old Guard, a kindly fellow in his fifties with white hair and gentle eyes… in other words, exactly the sort of person Japan's new masters were least impressed with.

"Excellent work," he commended. "You handled that very well."

"I… I did?"

"Oh, yes. We've had his sort through here before, and this is one of the first times that our person hasn't ended up calling security. Heck, by now even _I'd _want to strangle that fellow with my bare hands… I'm continually amazed by your resistance to annoying idiots, Ms. Mizuhara. How do you ever manage it?"

"Well… I guess you could say I've been immunized."

* * *

The promised rain arrived early in the evening, but couldn't seem to make up its mind as to whether or not it wanted to stay. When it came, it was only as a gentle patter here and there, and when it left it didn't go far. This weather did little to improve Chiyo's outlook, but she made a conscious effort to cheer herself up. After all, wasn't it Tomo herself who had railed against people for letting their spirits shrivel?

Taking her cues from Sakaki, she'd refrained from dressing formally for dinner. The only thing that could make seeing her friends again awkward was expecting it to be so, right? Sakaki assured her that it wasn't a terrifically nice restaurant anyway, which was a relief, as Chiyo had had her fill of "nice" restaurants growing up.

"Nervous?" Sakaki asked as they walked together down the crowded street.

Nervous about seeing Yomi and Kagura? Of course not! What could be more absurd? "A little," Chiyo admitted softly. "Things change…"

"Some don't," Sakaki said, patting her shoulder.

She had a point. This was Tokyo more or less as Chiyo remembered it, at least if you didn't look at the sky. If anything, the place was even brighter and busier, though there seemed to be more destitute people about. Too, now that she was actively looking, she noticed quite a few more police as well, thankfully Earthmen.

Just as Chiyo was making this observation, a bony hand fell gently on her arm. She half-turned to face an old woman that smiled up at her with wide, rheumy gray eyes. "I think…" she said in a creaky voice, "That you're the most beautiful shade of plum I've ever seen!"

"Um… thank you," Chiyo said graciously.

"Mom!" a man at least ten years Sakaki's senior pushed his way over to them. "Mom, there you are! Good lord, don't wander away like that! Akemi's worried sick!"

"She should watch me closer, then." This was said so vaporously that it lost any bite it might have had. "Such a pretty color…"

"And what's this, are you bothering people?" his annoyance quickly faded as he took the woman's arm. "Sorry about that," he said to Chiyo before leading his mother away. "Come on, now, Mom…"

"Did you see her? She's beautiful!"

"Yes, that girl was quite pretty…"

Troubled, Chiyo looked after them as they vanished from sight in the shifting crowds. She reached up slowly and ran her fingers over her sleeve where the old woman had touched her.

"Are you okay?" Sakaki asked.

"Huh? Y-yes, I'm sorry." Chiyo shook her head. "Goodness! Where _is _my head these days?"

* * *

Chiyo had worried long and hard over what she'd say upon seeing Yomi and Kagura again. The thought of her reunion either of them was a little intimidating. They'd been the most serious of her friends, each in her own way. It was far too easy to imagine either one leaving her old self behind and becoming a strange new person that might not be a friend. She'd strained her fantastic mind to come up with the perfect greeting, the best way to present herself, the questions she should ask and the answers she should give…

But then, when she finally saw Kagura, her carefully rehearsed greeting vanished in a wordless, joyful squeal as they collided. Laughing, Kagura lifted her into the air in spite of the fact that the younger girl now towered over her. "Chiyo-chan! You look _great! _How ya been?"

"Ms. Kagura! Oh, I can't tell you how good it is to see you!"

Meanwhile, Sakaki waved silently to Yomi, who managed a calm "Hey," just an instant before she was hit by an avalanche of overjoyed prodigy. Judging from the startled sound she made, Yomi probably hadn't been hugged like that in a long time. "Hi, Chiyo," she said when she got her breath back. "How's it going?"

"Oh, wow," Chiyo stepped back, holding her at arm's length and taking in the green suit and heels. (There had been no time to change after work.) "Look at you…! So professional!"

"You don't look bad yourself." Yomi was surprised at how direct Chiyo's half-teasing compliment had been. It wasn't rude, exactly, but it was still a change from the pre-America days of uber-politeness. The height was another shock—Chiyo was even a little taller than _her_—but that would probably set in later.

"Hell, yeah, this is just like old times!" Kagura exulted. "Hey, rival, I'll race you to the restaurant…" Sakaki chuckled softly, which made _everybody _jump.

"That's a good look for you," Chiyo commended again as they set out together, "What do you do these days, Ms. Yomi?"

"Oh, God, I don't want to talk about work, not now…" she shook her head ruefully. "And it's pretty much all I have going on lately."

"Works herself to the bone, she does," Kagura commented tactlessly, "I don't think she's given herself a break since you left."

"Oh, like you're one to talk," Yomi countered. "What about…?"

"Hey, I do that because I enjoy it! I have no idea why you…" Kagura noticed that Chiyo was looking back and forth between them, a little worried. "Ah, just an old argument. It's all in good fun, right Yomi?"

"Okay…" Chiyo changed tacks. "Er… so what have you been up to, Kagura?"

"Disaster relief," Kagura said with barely-concealed pride. "I'm a rescue worker!"

"Really? Is it, is it dangerous?" Chiyo's eyes were wide with wonderment and perhaps a touch of anxiety. Sensing an affected audience, the former athlete couldn't help but play to it. Yomi slapped her forehead in a "here we go again" sort of way.

"Oh, not too dangerous," Kagura said, voice dripping with casualness, "Not like it was back when the _giant monsters_ were still running around. Nah, all we have to deal with these days is earthquakes, typhoons, things like that."

"Giant-? You mean you…?"

"Yeah, I saw the big guys in action once or twice. Oh, why are you looking at me like that? It's not like I'm reckless or anything…"

Yomi snorted. "Oh, not at all."

"Jeez, nothing's happened in, like, 3 months anyway. We've just been kicking around and training. What gives?"

Chiyo shook herself. "No, you're right. I'm sorry… I, I always imagined you'd find a job like that, you know? Something exciting, dangerous… something that not everybody can do. I'm glad. It's an agency of some kind that you work for, then?"

"Exciting? Not lately. But yeah, we're a new agency, Enryu." Kagura indicated her tan T-shirt, which bore a round red logo. It was heavily abstracted and simplified, but it looked like a dragon lifting a human figure clear of a choppy sea, or perhaps flames. "People get on our case 'cause it was set up by Those Bastards, but I don't hear them complaining while I'm pulling 'em out of twisted wreckage and doing up their wounds."

"So you're happy with it?" It was obvious by Chiyo's tone that this was the most important question in her book.

"It's a living, yeah," Kagura shrugged. "Someone's gotta do it, right?"

"Here we are," Sakaki said. Chiyo didn't even catch the restaurant's name as they were whisked inside. Upon feeling the dark, genteel ambiance within, she braced herself for a nasally-voiced majordomo to obsequiously ask for their reservations… but instead, a smiling waitress led them to a booth and she could breathe easy again. She'd gotten _more_ than her fill of "nice" restaurants growing up.

"Not bad," Kagura slapped Sakaki's back. "That's one for you! Uh… what's up, Yomi?"

Yomi looked around in mild disgruntlement. "Bad memories, is all. I had lunch with a Gaijin functionary here. He was a real jerk, and I _still_ don't know what he wanted."

Kagura laughed. "Aren't they all? Oh, look, there's an insert menu of Black Hole food! Sakaki! If you order one of these, I will."

Chiyo smiled, remembering all the futile challenges Kagura had issued to her "rival" over the years. Then blinked in surprise when Sakaki raised an eyebrow and asked dryly, "After what happened _last _time?" Oh, well, even Sakaki had to give in sooner or later, right?

"Wasn't as bad as this Western-style stuff…"

Yomi rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed with exasperation. It had the look of a habitual gesture.

"So, who's paying?" Kagura asked. "Rock, paper, scissors?"

"I'll cover it," Chiyo and Sakaki said in unison.

"Uh, oh. Looks like a fight…"

"You're the guest," Sakaki said firmly.

"Yeah, but…" Chiyo paused, realizing that there was no polite way to say, 'I could buy this _restaurant_, let alone the food.' Rather than giving it a try, she relented. "Okay."

Small talk meandered as they waited for their food and started in. Over time, Chiyo became more and more comfortable with her old friends, sliding back into familiar patterns and reminiscing on days long past… ignoring any incidents pertaining to giant monsters and aliens, of course. By the time they finally ate, it was as if she had never left.

And yet… something _was _bothering Chiyo. There was an empty space at the table; not physically, but she could feel it all the same. A hole in the air next to Yomi, stretching silences where obnoxious comments should have rung out, an odd sort of tension that tugged at them just when they were on the verge of settling into deeply contented nostalgia…

Finally, as Kagura was mopping up the last vestige of gravy on her plate with her roll (meaning the rest of them were about halfway done), Chiyo gave. "I'm… sorry to bring this up, but please, I have to know… what… what happened to Ms. Tomo?"

The ambiance shifted, but Chiyo couldn't tell just how. Yomi sat back and looked at her resignedly. "I knew I'd have to tell you sooner or later."

Kagura's expression sobered and Sakaki straightened to take advantage of a handy band of shadow that obscured her eyes. There were a few seconds of quiet as everybody collected themselves; some dolt at another table started laughing, which didn't help the mood.

"None of us really know," Yomi finally admitted. "If anybody knows, it's Ayumu, and, well…" No delicate way to say it. "It probably wouldn't be a good idea to ask her."

"They went to college together, didn't they?" Chiyo asked.

"Yes. And they left together, too… about 3 years ago, Tomo was accepted into the Tokyo Police Academy." Yomi smiled sadly. "She was absolutely insufferable for weeks… when she first came over with the news, she jumped up on my kitchen table and started going 'dah-nah-_naaah_, dah-nah-_naaah…_'"

Chiyo giggled weakly. "Ah, the SWAT theme. That sounds like something she'd do."

"Is that what it was? I thought she was just being a moron. Well, as she was preparing to leave school, there was an… um, incident in Osaka. Have you heard of Hedorah?"

"I'm sorry, no."

"The 'smog monster.' It… attacked Osaka until your father sent Mechagodzilla to destroy it. Ayumu… lost family to it. We're not sure, only Tomo would know, but we think that this is when she had her first breakdown… she was having these awful, vivid nightmares of what it must have been like to be there. Tomo bragged that she was able to describe Hedorah from her dreams before any footage or images of it were released."

"Bragged…?"

"No, I'm sorry, she didn't really _brag_. Not even Tomo's that insensitive." Yomi looked away for a moment, wincing at the present-tense. "You know how she would do that… acting like they were _her_ dreams or something. They left their college together and moved back to Tokyo. We were all a little surprised."

"Not me," Kagura put in, sober but challenging, "They were pretty into each other."

"No they weren't," Yomi sighed. "It wasn't like that. If you'd spent more time with them you would have seen."

"I think I saw plenty."

"Well, anyway, the very fact that we're having this argument should tell you how close they were," Yomi forged ahead. "Tomo went to her Academy and Ayumu kept their apartment… none of us really heard a lot from them after that, but it sounded like they were doing pretty well."

"Hm…" Chiyo tried to imagine what kind of a domestic setting those two must have made, but she honestly couldn't. "I wish I could've seen them."

"Yeah…" Yomi shook her head. "Then the Invaders came. It was… well, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it."

"That's fine," Chiyo assured her. She didn't really want to be subjected to an account of the invasion anyway. One tragedy was enough for now.

"Tomo was on some kind of internship or something… I don't really know how it works at the Academy. She was out with some real policemen, patrolling just after Japan's surrender… there were these big riots, and even some of the police units were joining in. She just went out into that mess one day, and…" Yomi spread her hands. "Didn't come back. They would have told Ayumu more, but that's all we got. Even Tomo's parents haven't heard anything else."

Chiyo nodded, swallowing. Now she didn't even know why she had asked… what good did knowing any of this do? Tomo was still… was still…

"Subject change?" Kagura jumped in. "I think a subject change would be good."

"Yes! Yes." Chiyo shook her head rapidly. Her memory shot back for a moment… she saw Tomo in the Godzilla shelter, standing over a checkerboard and offering to kick any ass in the room even as her classmates were still cowering. She would've been the last person to give in… "Ms. Sakaki, how have you been doing at that veterinary clinic? You haven't said much yet."

"Heh!" Kagura smirked. "She's been doing a lot better since she got that boyfriend of hers, the florist."

"He's not…" Sakaki protested, blushing furiously enough that it was clear that he was _something_, all right. Chiyo's spirits slowly lifted as the evening wore on. Vaguely, she recalled hearing Tomo's philosophy on life and admitting, "I don't have what it takes to live like you." When was that, the 10 km run? Yes… well, she would have to have what it takes now. Just as the Takinator surely wouldn't surrender, so she would have to become… _the Mihaminator!_

Chiyo declined to explain why she'd suddenly snorted into her shake. She had a feeling none of them would get the joke anyway.


	4. The Vampire Bug Strikes!

Sakaki thoroughly enjoyed the turnaround her young friend showed; now Chiyo just looked tired instead of on the verge of dropping dead. The bewildering uncertainty that had plagued her for years in the US had finally lifted. She'd found out some terrible things, but now at least she knew.

They returned that evening enveloped in a relaxed, happy vibe, though Sakaki's cheeks were still burning. Chiyo watched her for a few seconds while she was fiddling with the lock, then suddenly jumped up and hugged her. "Sorry about all that," she said, "I'm sure they meant well… you're just too easy to tease sometimes."

"It's fine."

"But honestly, Mr. Takeda sounds wonderful," Chiyo continued as they entered, "Say, I remember collecting those career survey sheets way back in High School… wasn't 'Florist' one of your choices?"

Sakaki shrugged. "I think."

"Mrs. Andrea Nanashi Takeda…" Chiyo tried it out under her breath, apparently quietly enough that she thought Sakaki couldn't hear, but the towering girl was quickly set to blushing again. It was kind of childish of Chiyo, but she took it into her head to be jarringly child-like at the weirdest times.

Oblivious to the discomfort she'd caused, she wandered across the living room and zeroed in on a spray of roses on the kitchen table. Her long, tapered fingers ran over them and she smiled as if meeting a friend's pet for the first time. "Did he give you these?"

"Yeah."

"They're very nice, but… forgive me, I think they've been watered a little too much."

"Oh?" Sakaki stared. Was there no end to this girl's talents? "You can tell?"

"I… I think," she slid the vase a few centimeters across the table. "It's not always that reliable, but sometimes I seem to be a… a sort of a Grass Whisperer, if you catch my meaning."

"Huh." Thinking of Chiyo and plants together brought back nasty memories. "That's… something."

"Isn't it? My roommate thinks I'm insane." She giggled. "Actually, quite a few people think that these days."

Before they could continue, though, somebody rapped smartly on the door. Apologetic but somewhat relieved, Sakaki excused herself to answer it. A familiar voice asked, "Oh, someone's here? Is this a bad time, Ms. Sakaki?"

The host glanced back to Chiyo, who grinned and spread her hands. "Not at all," Sakaki said, "Come in."

Osamu had gotten a little taller since high school, too. A long black coat swished about him, making his every move more expansive and dramatic… as if they needed any help. Black hair brushed his shoulders, just barely curling up at the ends. His dark eyes were mellow but oddly intense--and Chiyo almost thought he was wearing eye-shadow, but if so, it was very subtle.

"Good day," he removed his coat with almost the same sort of flourish Chiyo had and it fell neatly over the back of a chair. His turtleneck and jeans were black as well, naturally. "I didn't know you were back in town."

"How's it goin'?" Chiyo greeted casually, then caught herself and became Ms. Polite again. "You look well, Mr. Osamu."

"Agh, _she_ knows all about it," Osamu thrust a hand towards Sakaki and sat down heavily on the arm of the couch. "I've only been here bitching about life almost every day for the past week. My Calling becomes more difficult to follow by the day."

"My Calling?" The audible capital letter intrigued her.

"Osamu is still a seeker of the Truth," Sakaki explained, her tone and expression so completely serious that there was no doubt she was laughing inside.

The prodigy glanced at him and he felt the need to qualify, "Er… not for a living. I also have this little design business with Kazuki, that, uh…" his eyes darted back and forth between them. "Look, I know neither of you are able to take what I do seriously. I can live with that. But if I'm going to be mocked here, give me some warning."

Chiyo blinked innocently. It honestly hadn't occurred to her to mock him however silly she thought his conspiracy theories got. (It was the one thing she really remembered about him from High School—well, that and the time he took out a light fixture in the gym with a basketball then tried to play it like that had been his intention all along.) Sakaki shook her head. "You know we won't."

"Yeah…" Osamu turned to the younger woman. "Do you realize how lucky you are to have her as a friend? She's the one person in all of Tokyo that I can trust completely. No matter how crazy and twisted the world has gotten, she still hasn't been warped by it."

Chiyo nodded solemnly. "I know it."

"Well look, if you have a guest, I won't bug you." Osamu rose. "I just…"

"You're fine," Sakaki said, putting a hand on his shoulder and gently pushing him back down. "Just relax."

"Thanks." His gaze was grateful, and… no, Chiyo was definitely imagining the _other_ part of it. Sakaki didn't seem to notice. "Ooh… sorry, Ms. Sakaki, I have to try this. Hey, Chiyo, have you had any… strange feelings since you came to Tokyo?"

Looking back through the nervousness, shock, terror, anxiety, ecstasy, anger, depression, disjoint and bone-crushing weariness she'd been dragged through over the past day-and-a-half, Chiyo came _this_ close to making a sarcastic reply. "Not really, why?"

"Some visitors get this weird, paranoid feeling," he seemed to enjoy the thought, "As if somebody unfriendly is watching them… from _above_. Like there's this malevolent eye looking right down at the tops of their heads."

"Is that so?" Chiyo pondered. Hmm, her imagination was probably (hopefully) just manufacturing the feeling from his description. "You know, now that you mention it…"

"Ha!" Osamu snapped his fingers and pointed to her. "That's Dimension Tide."

Sakaki sighed patiently and left to make some tea.

"Um, Dimension Tide?"

"It's a secret weapon the Americans have." Osamu dropped into the couch next to her and leaned close. "Why do you think the Gaijin stopped when they did, instead of taking the rest of Europe or the Americas? Get this… there's a satellite in geo-synchronous orbit above Tokyo, and its poised to shoot a black hole down on the city and suck up their mothership!"

"Er…" Chiyo paused, "I don't think that's quite… I… I mean, a _black hole?_ Even if there were some way to generate one, wouldn't that destroy the whole planet? Wouldn't a black hole suddenly appearing here eat the whole solar system? It would at least mess up Earth's orbit…"

"I don't know, maybe they made it so it'll only take in so much mass and then implode or something."

"What would it implode _into_? It's a black hole. It's imploded pretty much as far as it can go. And once you made it, how would you fire it towards the Earth? Aren't black holes more massive than a, a thousand stars?" Her objections might have been more grounded, but the degree Chiyo worked towards so feverishly was _not _in Physics.

"Well, I don't pretend to understand the science, but…" he sighed and sat back. "Ah, never mind."

"I'm sorry, it just sounds like something out of a Sixties science fiction movie."

"That bothered me at first too, but…" Osamu grinned wickedly. "Look around, Chiyo-chan. We're living one!"

Chiyo laughed. That was exactly the sort of cracked logic that Ayumu would have used to… to… the prodigy sat up and checked her watch slowly, expression sickening. "Oh no…" she moaned. "I forgot to… I'm such a…"

"What's wrong?"

"I told Ms. Ayumu that I'd visit her again today, and… and visiting hours just ended!" She gripped her bangs angrily. "How could I forget? Oh, I'm such an idiot!"

"Damn, that sucks. Would it help if you went there now? I could give you a ride."

"No, I… they're pretty stringent. I don't think I could get through to see her anyway. Thanks, though." She looked to the ceiling and struck her thigh with a fist. "Idiot!"

"What if you bribed them?" Sakaki asked pragmatically, pressing a cup of tea into her hands.

"Holy…!" Osamu stood suddenly. "Did I just hear _Ms. Sakaki_ suggest bribing someone? Did I ever misjudge you or what!" It was plain to see that he was mostly kidding. Mostly.

"Heh. It'd about time my name went to good use…" Chiyo took a long sip and when she spoke again, she seemed to have found her center. "This is very good, Ms. Sakaki, thanks for everything. Mr. Osamu, if you wouldn't mind…?"

"Sure."

Chiyo stood to leave without finishing the tea, though. A strange, vague notion had infected her on the same level as the "someone's watching me_"_ feeling that Osamu mentioned. She couldn't dismiss this one so lightly, though… somehow, she knew that something bad was happening to Ayumu as they spoke. Something awful.

* * *

Seoul's presiding monster was known as Yongary. He was a generic, somewhat tubby saurian beast that breathed fire and (perplexingly) could fire a cutting laser from the great horn at the end of his snout. He had a number of strange habits, such as drinking fossil fuels for his supper and boogying down whenever somebody played music loud enough for him to hear. Unlike the cruel and rapacious Gigan, Yongary made it possible to believe that perhaps he was just a misunderstood giant making his way in the world. 

The monster spent most of his time in the jungle, patrolling Seoul's borders and looming menacingly over its citizens. However, that unfortunate evening, Yongary's alien controllers ordered him into the city and he stomped down a wide street, heedless of the cars that careened helplessly around his feet and crashed into the craters left in his wake. Thankfully, his tail swung high enough that it wasn't sweeping them from the road as he passed.

What could be dire that they would send their forty-meter-tall behemoth tromping through downtown without warning? Why, the dreadful wanderer was paying them a visit. It sat atop the Haitai Building, jagged wings beating slowly and freeing a cloud of scales to drift in the air thus stirred. They were in the same pastel hues as its wings, but when light struck them at certain angles they shone brightly green, making their mass resemble a snowfall of flickering parachute flares. As always, its wedge-shaped head swung this way and that as if it were searching… but for what?

_Zrack! _Yongary's yellow cutting beam snapped up, aiming to saw those beautiful wings from that ugly armored body. Before it even got close, though, the beam struck a scale and burst apart like light in a prism, playing harmlessly across the bug's dark carapace. Those poisonously green eyes turned lazily on Yongary and dismissed him.

Not one to be snubbed, the saurian charged forward, smashing bodily through the Haitai Building and rending it to the ground in seconds. (It probably hurt—the building was a little less than twice his height.) Completely unfazed, his opponent took to the air and lifted clear of the carnage, watching the fire-belching monster's rampage without concern. Yongary roared a challenge… but he was already wobbling and swaying dizzily after catching a lungful of the strange, apparently narcotic scales.

Cloaked in choking, billowing dust, the wanderer seemed to consider flying away and letting the encounter go at that, but instead—

_VOIP!_ (You knew it was coming sooner or later.)

A glowing blade arced out of thin air and carved up through Yongary's body, knocking him sprawling. As he struggled to rise, the bug descended towards him vampirically, extending its proboscis…

* * *

"Ma'am, I apologize, but visiting hours are ov…" the orderly stumbled to a halt when, instead of introducing herself, Chiyo simply whipped her checkbook out. "What are you…?" 

"How much is it gonna take?"

"Um, ma'am? Rules are rules, and…" he choked when she thrust a check at him and he read the amount. "Homina…! Uh, uh, right this way."

"Thank you!" she said brightly, just as if he'd decided to let her in out of the kindness of his heart. Osamu gave her the victory sign and took his leave; he'd always wondered what had become of Ayumu, but when they came to _this_ place, he realized that maybe he shouldn't be so curious.

Chiyo rushed through the creaky, gentle halls, heart in her throat. _She's probably given up on me… shoot, I hope she isn't mad…_ it was better to be anxious about that; quite apart from having no proof, she couldn't bear to contemplate the creeping feeling that still assailed her.

When they came to the door, though, the orderly hesitated upon noticing a tag on the doorknob. "On second thought, I shouldn't compromise the integrity of the…"

"Hey!" Chiyo yelped, "I just gave you a ch--!"

"Shh! Shh! Alright, alright…" the orderly swallowed nervously. "Your friend… might not be herself, though…"

"I know. It's okay."

"And… uh, if you were to, uh… _encounter_ anything…"

"Let me in." If any of Chiyo's friends were to hear that flat, cold command, they could never have recognized her voice. "…uh, please?"

So he unlocked the door and stood well aside for her… then swiftly shut it behind her without any further pleasantries. The room was dark, cool and full of a faintly sweet aroma. Jasmine? At first there was no sign of the Osakan, but then Chiyo caught sight of her on the couch, sitting absolutely still except for a slight, tense trembling. Her eyes were enormous, fixed unswervingly on a point in the air over the kitchenette.

"Ms. Ayumu?" She didn't respond. "M-ms. Ayumu?"

Ayumu twitched, and for a moment it seemed that she had heard. But she only inched sideways, eyes tracking across the ceiling, following something nobody else could see. And though it would have been a pleasant anticlimax, she obviously wasn't just watching the dust in her eyes.

Chiyo crossed softly to her and touched her arm. "Ms. Ayumu, what's-?" Ayumu screamed and jerked away, tripping on the edge of the couch and falling heavily. She whirled in a panic and crabbed away from Chiyo until she hit the wall, where she curled into a tight ball and cast about frantically until she found the point she'd been focused on, now hovering over the door.

Chiyo glanced back towards it, half looking to see if anyone was coming and half trying to find whatever it was Ayumu was staring at. No, there was nothing, of course. This was just… one of her problems. Chiyo suddenly wanted to weep. She minced forward a few steps, but then sat down on the ground and looked at her friend despondently. What now?

_Imbecile! _A voice within berated. _Trained psychiatrists and doctors can't help her, so what are _you _going to do? What, do you think you're some kind of Goddess? All you can do is hurt her now! You should just-!_

"Chiyo-chan?" Ayumu quavered. "Is that you?"

"Yes! Y-yes, it's me!" Chiyo was suddenly across the room and at her side. "I'm here!"

"Ehehehe…" the Space Cadet smiled a little, but she continued to stare above the door. Up close, dark circles under her eyes were apparent. "Sorry 'bout that. I'm… havin' a rough time here. It… do ya see it?"

Chiyo looked down sadly. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay, there's probably nothin' to see anyhow." she shifted uncomfortably and watched the mysterious spot move down past the door and towards where she'd been sitting before. "But I know… I'll die if it touches me. Even… even if it's just my brain messin' with me and hallucinatin', it'll still kill me…"

"What… what is it?"

"Oh, don't humor me," Ayumu chuckled bitterly. "It doesn't do no good to pretend like dangerous lunatics are makin' sense."

"Ms. Ayumu…!" Chiyo seized her arm. "Please, don't--!" But she was interrupted by a feeling like a knife of ice through her gut. When she touched Ayumu, the air where her friend was staring seemed to ripple. For just a brief, terrifying instant, Chiyo thought she saw the beat of a ragged wing. "—you aren't a lunatic!"

Ayumu slumped. "Ah'm afraid you're wrong… the way things are, even- even if that thing is real, I'm still delusional, I still get the nightmares, I'm… ah! Oh, thank God, it's gone…"

Chiyo realized that the smell of jasmine had faded. The icy blade in her stomach twisted. "You know," Ayumu commented, relaxing. "They never come any more."

"Who?"

"Doctors, attendants, zookeepers, whatever they got here. When ah have these… episodes… they don't come. Even when ah scream, it takes 'em 'least an hour." She hugged her knees and rested her chin on them. "Maybe they think it's catching."

"No…" At least, Chiyo sure hoped it wasn't. What had she seen?

"By the way Chiyo-chan, I'm glad you were here… it's a lot less scary with a friend around. Thanks for comin' up."

"Er… no problem." So it helped just to have someone there to hold her hand? Chiyo felt another sharp twinge of anger--what the hell did those doctors think they were doing by abandoning her like this, then? Something was seriously wrong.

Ayumu stood and dusted herself off. "Don't usually come that soon after, though. I usually get a few weeks before the next one… Oh! Yeah, there's something I was wonderin' about…" she turned on her heel and reached up to brush Chiyo's hair back and run a ginger finger along her jawline. "Ah… it really _did_ happen. I'm real sorry… those're my fault, aren't they? An' yet, Yomi insists that she and Tomo-chan never had to fight off the army of mold monsters."

"Huh?" the prodigy was completely lost. _What _was her fault? It took a moment to remember the faint Biollante-root scars and how Ayumu felt somehow responsible for them. "Mold monsters?"

"Tomo told me this story once, an' it had the undeniable ring of truth…" Ayumu yawned cavernously, with such power and control that even Chiyo was awed. "Stupid episode kept me up. Sorry to angst on ya an' run, but I gotta get some sleep."

"That's all right." Chiyo stuck around for a few minutes after Ayumu dropped off in slumber, sitting on the bed next to her and thinking deep, disturbing thoughts. She almost didn't notice when the door opened and somebody entered softly. Turning to see if it was an attendant demanding she leave, Chiyo felt the knife again.

All she could see of the visitor was a silhouette, eyes glimmering in the fading light from the room's only window. A jolt of adrenalin shot through her when that unnatural gleam confirmed her fears: this visitor was not of the Earth!


	5. Freedom in the Rain and Dark

Chiyo rose sharply and the approaching figure winced in surprise to see her. They stared at each other as the room darkened, equally baffled at the other's presence and neither willing to make the first move. Fortunately, Ayumu woke to end the standoff without even noticing it. "Oh, hiya, sis!" she called happily. "…but shouldn't you have green eyes?"

"Wh... _what?_" Chiyo turned to her friend just in time to be blinded as the bedside lamp flared to light. Blinking the spots from her vision, Chiyo beheld a girl that she'd surely never seen before and yet seemed oddly familiar. She was Xian, blue of skin with golden eyes that dominated her heart-shaped face, though they were shockingly dark by Planet X standards, almost brown. A ponytail the color of gritty snow swung about her elbows. She was built along similar lines to Yomi, though several centimeters shorter, wrapped in a dark gray coat and some kind of stole… no, that was a white dragony creature draped across her shoulders, snoozing contentedly.

It was a sign of the times that running up against a space alien wearing a dragon didn't particularly bother Chiyo. She'd actually met a few Xians in the States and they generally seemed to be a decent sort, if a little loopy by Earthman standards.

"No, no, this time I'm not delusional!" Ayumu protested. "She looks different now, but… go on, introduce yourself!"

Both visitors looked at her strangely, but when she motioned them towards each other, they relented. "Um… I'm Chiyo Mihama," she said finally, offering her hand. "Very pleased to meet you."

"Xandra of Planet X, likewise."

There was a brief pause while their hostess looked between them expectantly.

"Whoa, wait a sec! _Chiyo Mihama?_"

"Ms. Blueman? S-Sandra?"

"Holy crap, Chiyo-chan, you're a colossus! What happened to you?"

"Genes on my mother's side," Chiyo waved it off. "But you're an _alien?_"

"Nobody told you?"

"Nobody told me, neither." Ayumu crossed her arms. "I always figured, though, since you were such a flake."

Xandra giggled. "Of all the people to hear that from…"

"Yeah, comin' from me, it's not too credible, huh?"

"My word!" Chiyo had to sit down again. "Wow… I was wondering if I'd see you…"

"I never thought I'd find _you _here. What the heck are you doing back?"

"It's a surprise to me, too. Er, how'd you get in here?"

"The orderly seemed to be in kind of a daze. Oh… and I brought a release for Ayumu to get out of here, in case she's interested." This was dropped so casually that neither of them immediately realized what she'd said. "Sound good?"

"Ah, thank ya!" Ayumu agreed cheerfully. "That'd be gr—!" and then it _really_ hit her and she choked. The look on her face, at least according to Xandra, was absolutely priceless. She felt rather like she'd come out completely unharmed after being struck by lightning while carrying a winning lottery ticket on her birthday. "Y-y-y-y-you're joking!"

"Nope," the Xian affirmed, relishing her stupefaction. "No joke."

"But—but I—it isn't-!" Ayumu then decided to be quiet until she could form a coherent sentence. It would probably be a while.

"Are you sure it's okay?" Chiyo asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, I have a certifiable-uh, certified psychologist backing me up on this, _and_ she's an authority in, ah… other disciplines." Xandra beckoned a trifle impatiently. "But, uh, we're on a bit of a time budget here… I think someone we'd _really_ rather not meet is looking for you, sister, and we should get out of here before they realize that the papers are forged."

"_What?_ Now hold on just a moment!" Chiyo cried.

Xandra walked swiftly around the bed and pushed her away from Ayumu, then stood on her toes and spoke softly. "There's something wrong with her that they can't deal with. Even if this is your first visit, you must've noticed strange things going on around here. You're smart. Think back."

She complied, and had to admit that she had noticed a few oddities… but the one that stuck out for her was the orderly's shiftiness just before letting her in. _If you were to, uh… _encounter_ anything… _ What had he meant by that? Unless… she remembered the ragged wing and jasmine… she _had _encountered something. "No. No way."

"You're not the only one… I've done some consulting, and the psychiatrists I've talked to agree that whatever's going on is irregular, but they can't move against this place because it's run by the State. I found out that half of the social workers here had strange experiences with her before they started isolating her during her attacks."

"That's… that's horrible!"

"I won't pretend that sister won't have a hard time out there, but at least she'll have a chance." Sandra's eyes were wide and completely sincere. "It's either we get her out right now, or she's stuck here for the rest of her life… and that might not be too long."

Chiyo knew that she was being forced to make a decision that she would regret for a very long time, whichever way she went. Finally, she drew a deep sigh and cast the dice. "Let's go."

For her part, Ayumu had either completely missed the tension in the room or chosen to ignore it. She was buttoning up a dark brown duster and looping a lime green scarf around her neck. "Tomo-chan got this for me, but I only got to wear it once," she tugged on the scarf. "Huh. Makes me feel like a parakeet."

"You'll be using it a lot more now," Xandra replied kindly. "I imagine we'll have a devil of a time getting you to come indoors at all."

"Nah. Anywhere that isn't here…"

Chiyo noticed that her accent wasn't as pronounced as before and felt a little relieved, even though she knew that accents were a messy, unreliable thing to try and gauge somebody's emotions by. She followed behind the sisters, contemplating the fact that she was taking part in what was probably some kind of felony, seriously risking the well-being of a friend and consorting with a space alien at a time when this would be considered very unpatriotic. Why, then, did she feel this simmering, impish glee at flouting the rules, just as she had after sneaking through the police barricade in Sendai?

"Feels strange," Ayumu commented. "Knowin' I won't be comin' back. Hee! The docs sure won't miss me… I don't know what they were lookin' for, but they got it into their heads that I was a," she deepened her voice importantly, "Bloody-minded, uncooperative young woman. Well, I'll tell ya, they were pretty uncooperative themselves!" After having a good laugh at that, she grounded herself a little. "I sure hope Shinji an' Rin'll be okay."

"Did you make a lot of friends?" Xandra asked.

"A few…" Ayumu sighed. "But I didn't really fit in here, though, y'know? Everybody… they… well, it's sad. S'like nobody here fits in anywhere."

"I have some friends I think you'll like. Hey, remember Kazuki?"

At this point they'd reached the reception area, not twenty meters from freedom, and their only obstacle reared its balding head. "Excuse me?" the orderly called from his desk. "There seems to be a problem with the papers. The hospital you named doesn't have a Dr. Aida."

"Really?" Xandra asked guardedly. "It must be a typo or something."

Chiyo looked at the orderly as he and Xandra dickered over the papers and something snapped inside of her that she hadn't even realized was straining. He had just started to lean over to the intercom, saying, "We're going to have to keep Ms. Kasuga here until…" when Chiyo marched up to the desk, jerked the intercom out of his reach and grabbed a great handful of his collar. "Wha-?"

"_You!_"

"M-me?"

"It's unbelievable! You all knew that something beyond the pale was happening to this poor woman! You _knew_ that something was really, truly, honestly manifesting around her and that she was scared to death of it! So what did you do? You locked her away and tried to ignore it! What, did you hope that the thing would eat her and she wouldn't be your problem anymore?"

"Be reasonable!" he pleaded, edging towards the intercom, "We were under orders to…" Before he reached it, Chiyo showed surprising strength in her spindly arm by shoving him back in his chair until it creaked under his weight.

"Does it _look_ like I'm in the mood to be reasonable! Why in God's name did you even keep her? Haven't you ever heard of Becker's Labeling Theory! You're despicable! There are… there are _hundreds_ of better ways you could have dealt with this! Why couldn't you just admit you didn't know what to do!"

"What can anybody do?" the orderly asked in a small voice.

"_You could have at least tried to find out!_" She followed this up with something in English that had her victim looking shocked and a bit scandalized. Afterwards, there were a few seconds where the only sound was his chair's ominous creaking before she let him go and stepped back, finishing in a much milder tone. "We're going to be taking Ms. Kasuga off of your hands now. Thanks for cooperating."

Light-headed, she turned away to see both of her companions and even the dragon staring as if they'd never seen her before. "Right, then," Xandra said uncomfortably. "Shall we on without apology?"

Eager though she was, Ayumu hesitated right at the threshold. The two years she'd spent here felt like a lifetime, but with just one more step… she reached out to take Chiyo's hand and, smiling tremulously, stepped out into the open night air for the first time since her unhappy arrival. As if the elements knew what this meant to her, a swift, gentle rain rushed over them, putting the perfect finishing touch on her freedom.

"Thanks, Xannie…" Ayumu sighed, tilting her head back and letting the raindrops kiss her face. "Thanks, Chiyo-chan. I'm happy as a scallop."

Chiyo squeezed her hand while Xandra answered, "Hey, no problem. And if you ever call me Xannie again, I'll piledriver you. Through a table. Covered with tacks."

"Thumbtacks or the kind with the little handles?"

"I dunno, which do you think would hurt more?"

"Well…"

Once they were gone, the orderly flipped open his cell phone and dialed quickly. "Yeah," he said to the person who picked up. "Yeah, they just left. … With Xandra of Planet X and Chiyo Mihama. … You're welcome. If it's not a 'need-to-know' kinda thing, can you tell me what you're going to do with that information?" The answer made him cringe.

* * *

Even at night, Tokyo bustled. The three moved through the shadows of a neon wonderland, the endless tide of their fellow pedestrians appearing as little more than half-lit silhouettes. Ayumu spent the first few minutes of their journey in sensory overload, stunned by the blazing sea of color overhead, by the smells and sounds and constant motion of the city's life.

Chiyo continued to hold her hand as they walked, murmuring encouragement every now and then as she faltered. This arrangement actually triggered a foggy, moth-eaten memory in the back of her head… it seemed to Ayumu that at one point their circumstances had been reversed, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember when or why.

"Okay, hold up," Xandra stopped in the benevolent gaze of a street light and consulted her map. A symptom of growing up in space was that she was a bit directionally challenged. "I'm not sure where we are, here."

Now that Chiyo had time to look, she noticed that it was unusually dark at the street level; the bands of neon stopped sharply a few meters above them and streetlights were widely spaced. Was this perhaps for the Gaijin's comfort? She had once been scared of the dark and sprinted from light to light… were she alone, she might've picked up the habit again.

"They're wraiths," Ayumu said, smiling at the people streaming by in the dim night. "Like this is the afterlife or somethin'. The River Styx."

"You seem to enjoy the idea," Chiyo commented.

"That we're all dead? Yeah, a little."

"Okay, right," Xandra started them the way they'd come. "It's _this_ way."

* * *

The subway station had been even more alarmingly dark than the streets, but fortunately the train itself was as bright as ever. They selected a bench in one corner and there weren't enough commuters to crowd in around them. Finally, they were free to converse in relative private.

"I'm so sorry about that outburst," Chiyo said, contrite gaze on her sneakers. "I've never felt like that before… I mean, I just wanted to _kill_ him." Ayumu, leaning against her arm and watching the tunnel lights whip by, didn't reply, but her figurative sister smirked. "Hey, I woulda helped you hide the body." The prodigy fixed her with a cold, steady eye and she quailed.

(Actually, Chiyo _was_ exaggerating, but joking around about killing people made her uneasy, and it would be best to put a stop to it right now.)

"So… ha!" Xandra suddenly kicked her feet out and threw her head back, laughing. "Kaori's plan worked! Ha HA!"

"Oh!" Chiyo perked up at the familiar name. "Is that who we're going to see?"

"Yeppers."

"How is she? And say, how the heck are _you?_ Sorry, I never asked."

"Ah, we're doin' okay. Well… it could be better for her, I guess. I wasn't lying when I said she's certified to be a psychologist, but she got shut out of starting a practice because she was a part of this protest movement. Political bullcrap."

"Oh…"

"But more recently, we got an apartment together a few months ago and started a business like Kazuki and Osamu did. We're running… get this… an occult book store."

"An occult book store? Wow… that isn't the sort of thing I imagined her doing."

"And what _did_ you imagine her doing?" Xandra said in a suddenly snarky tone.

"Well, um…"

"There you go. What did you really know about her, back in the day, apart from her fixation on Sakaki?"

"Well…"

"Not a lot, I'd wager. I'll bet you're wondering if we're a couple, too!"

"But I…"

"You were too polite to ask, bless you, but… no, seriously, _were_ you wondering?"

"A… a little?" Chiyo answered, a tad anxiously. "I didn't realize…"

"Am I to assume that you two area couple, then?" Xandra asked, indicating Ayumu's hand in hers. The Space Cadet (no, _our _Space Cadet) glanced over and stuck her tongue out, which was enough answer for both of them.

"That isn't quite fair."

"Isn't it? So imagine how _she_ feels." Xandra stumbled over herself for a moment. "I mean, it's not like being a lesbian would be bad, but people keep giving her _crap _about it."

"I'm… I'm sorry." Chiyo said, not sure what she was apologizing for.

"Nah, I guess I was the one out of line," Xandra suddenly stopped, realizing that _she_ didn't know either. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. But I get so annoyed at people for just assuming things about other people they don't know anything about! When I, er, came out as an Xian, about half of my friends at the time just decided to stop having anything to do with me. It stung a little, you know?"

"I can imagine."

"And do you know what? It's even worse for Kaori, if you can believe it… the whole Sakaki thing keeps coming back to haunt her whenever we meet someone from the old school. Everybody who noticed or even suspected her crush just instantly assumes that she's… well, gay, but_ also_ some kind of creepy stalkery person, like that's how they think you have to be if you're gay or something. The guys snicker an' leer and the girls start getting all nervous, like she's gonna pull down the neck of her shirt and start hitting on them right then and there." She pulled a face. "As if any of 'em would be prize catches anyway."

"How awful…" Chiyo said sympathetically. "I can see why you'd be a little touchy."

"I can't believe people can act like that, though, even if she were… well, I'm not sure _where _she's pointed, honestly. You know what? She actually might be a lesbian, I dunno – I just get mad when people make that her defining trait without even knowing. And either way, it's no reason to act like that, right?"

"It isn't, you're right. I like to think people are generally more accepting than that. She blinked. "Um, not to belittle her experience."

"You give people too much credit." Xandra smiled faintly. "Well… great. Now I've just totally flipped out at you. It's been a day for that, hasn't it?"

Chiyo spread her hands. "We're under a lot of stress."

"Yep. So… uh, what do you want to talk about now?"

"Why is it red?" Ayumu suddenly asked.

"Eh?" Both of her companions looked to her.

"It's the red line and the blue line," she continued, gesturing vaguely up towards the sign above the train's door. "But why red and blue? Why not purple and gold or black and gray or orange and yellow? Ooh… or hot pink and neon green?"

"I… don't know, Ms. Ayumu. They probably don't want one to be gold or silver because then people would think that there was something special about it. Red and blue easy to tell apart, too."

"Never considered that," Ayumu nodded. "You're still real smart, Chiyo-chan, thanks. I was worried that America'd turn you into a barbarian or somethin'."

Chiyo opened her mouth to say, "What, it hasn't?" but held off. Fortunately, she was saved from the necessity of responding by the advent of a strange, sweet smell. It was eerily similar to that of the manifestation, but slightly burnt.

"Oh, give me a _break!_" Xandra growled. "Even here?" The dragon whined his disgust as well.

"What is it?"

"Those idiots in the front," the alien leaned in close and pointed surreptitiously. "They're smoking Moth. They better hope there aren't any police on this line."

"Er…" Chiyo looked to the front and saw a pure white cloud forming around a group of four guys. "Do you mean Meth?"

"No, Moth. It's new. But listen, I think I'm allergic to it or something. Last time someone smoked it near me I couldn't breathe, and I got these freaky tremors…" She stood. "Here, can we go to the next car? Like, real quick?"

"Of course." But when Chiyo rose, she found her friend frozen to the seat, blinking in shock. Oh, no. The _smell_. Had it triggered another attack? "Ms. Ayumu, are you all right?"

_Moth. Smoking… moth._ The name of the drug, along with its aroma and its pronounced effect on Xan (which she was beginning to feel herself), triggered another dim, foggy memory from long ago, one that Ayumu had actually assumed was just a dream but now rushed back as clearly and vividly as if it were yesterday.

She remembered finding herself, bewildered and naked, sitting in a street in evacuated Sendai, in the midst of a sea of white powder. The remains of… Gathra? What on Earth was a Gathra? She remembered the warning, _"Don't breathe this stuff in… it'll mess you _up_!" _which had been issued by a twelve-centimeter woman. (Huh?)

But how had she ended up there, and what…? Oh, now revelation was following revelation and her heart pounded to punch a hole in her ribcage and she was starting to shake from the smoke… everything was fitting together, but Chiyo was standing there, getting increasingly worried as she failed to respond…

"Doin' great." She found her feet and made to follow Chiyo, starting to feel the tremors in earnest, as well as a horrible, squirming nausea as she realized what it was they were actually smoking. "Do'worry… guess I'm allergic, too." Actually, there were quite a few things that she would have preferred to say at that moment, but it was doubtful that she'd be able to convince her friends of her sanity by suddenly shrieking, _"I'm inhaling the corpse of my only child!_"

Link after link formed. It didn't come back neatly, it didn't come back completely, but she suddenly had the clearest idea of which of her dreams had really happened and what she had really just dreamed since she'd been forced to forget what it was that she'd remembered without knowing what it was.

Wait, what?

This was a teetering, uncertain step, but she had taken it. "I… remember what I remembered!" she announced as they sat down again. "You won't believe me, though."

"Try us," Xandra offered.

And so she did.


	6. The Three Sisters

Ayumu's story was long, disjointed and confusing; she often backtracked, changed the subject without warning and made oblique leaps of logic that her audience just had to accept. By the time they emerged on street-level, though, they'd understood enough to see that her picture of events, though incredible, was at least internally consistent.

"So… recap time," Sandra said. "You're telling me that you _died_ and were reborn from the powderized remains of a monster called Gathra, which is your child the same way that we're sisters, and those guys were smoking that same powder?"

"Yup." No _wonder_ her complexion was a little green.

"Then this Gathra appeared in some kind of astral form at least twice to help you, but the second time, a pair of tiny women and another creature called Mothra made you forget that Gathra was your son even though you remembered almost everything else. Thus, you were stripped of your only assurance that you were really Ayumu Kasuga and not another girl manufactured on the spot to take her place."

"Well… that wasn't my only assurance…" Ayumu fingered the green scarf for a second, then shook herself. "Yup."

"Must have been pretty strange to have a huge bug for a kid."

"Well, I think it was a pretty sweet deal. All the happy, gushy parts of havin' a kid without any o' the hard parts, y'know? No dirty diapers, no tantrums, and ah didn't even have to pass him through my… um…" Ayumu coughed. "The, uh… egg was nice."

"_Anyway_, you're saying that _our_ memories of your connection with him have also been removed, and that's why none of us knew already?"

"Yup."

"Wow… I'd probably find my way into an asylum, too."

"Well, that's all there is ta that. You guys can tie me up an' drag me back any time."

"Stop it," Chiyo cut in, breaking a long silence. "Don't talk like that."

"Well, I can tell you don't believe me," she replied, turning her mellow brown gaze on the taller girl, who looked away uncomfortably.

"You have to admit that it's pretty difficult."

"Yeah, I gotta." Ayumu closed her eyes, thinking back. "Okay, remember this one, Chiyo-chan? Hotel-room just before we got ta Sendai, an' you were talkin' to me when nobody else was around, remember?"

"Yes, I think so." She remembered the doughnuts of that morning and seeing something upsetting on the news… and yes, a short conversation with Ayumu while Kagura was singing in the shower.

"You remember how I was feelin' just then?"

"You were…" Chiyo blinked. _That_ couldn't be right. "Happy?"

"Yes! An' how would I be happy marching to mah death if it was just some ugly little greebly gettin' born? I musta known somethin' that was keepin' my spirits up, an' I musta told you about it. C'mon, you remember?"

"I…" Chiyo squeezed her eyes shut. "Can't. I can't remember what we said."

"I know what ah said… I told you that it was my baby in that egg. An' what's more, I know he's still out there, an' he don't know it but he's missin' his mama."

Chiyo looked at her sideways. The thought of Ayumu raising something with more complicated needs than a Chia-pet was just a little bit disturbing, but… then she laughed out loud. She remembered having that exact thought way back then, worried about how Ayumu would take to motherhood. "It's true," she said wonderingly, "Darn it all, I remember! It's true!"

"You know, now that you mention it…" Sandra was in the midst of her own flashback. "I'd forgotten how I knew that we were sisters… yeah! I remember the little women now, and Mothra!"

"Thank goodness! It's happily ever after!" Ayumu sighed.

Both of her friends winced, just waiting for a giant monster's foot to come down on them or a gunfight to break out or any of the other awful events that Ayumu's statement invited to happen… but it seemed that the universe wasn't feeling very ironic that day. None of them noticed the silent figure that skulked after them and gave lie to her words.

* * *

_Pa-king, king, king!_ It was the same dorky little bell that rung over the door of every small shop on Earth, and it didn't fit in with the rest of the scenery very well at all. The store Kaori and Sandra minded was built in a wide circle, the outer walls lined with a ring of bookshelves full of dusty old grimores that must have been added for atmosphere, because ranks of more lightweight shelves stocked with nice shiny modern paperbacks occupied most of the floor.

The counter was actually a heavy old wooden desk carved with mythological creatures, creating a ridiculous contrast with the cash register and little plastic tray of mints. Kaori lounged with her feet propped up on it, a half-rotten grimore resting heavily across her lap. Her face had hardly changed at all since High School and her hair was still in the same style, but even just sitting there she seemed much more confident and easygoing. Of course, Chiyo had to admit that she'd rarely seen Kaori while Sakaki wasn't around, so her reading of the older girl's bearing probably wasn't worth much.

"We're back! And guess who I found," Sandra called, taking Chiyo's elbow and dragging her before the desk. "It's like one of those 'only-in-fiction' things!"

"Sometimes it seems like our whole lives are fictitious, doesn't it?" Kaori asked, setting the book aside and standing. She wore a red kimono such as their great-grandparents might have worn, which made her seem older, dignified, eccentric and mysterious all at once. "It's for the customers," she explained when she caught Chiyo staring. "I'm Kaori Aida, by the way. Pleased to meet you."

Chiyo chuckled and wondered how many times she'd end up going through this scene. "Chiyo Mihama."

Kaori's jaw dropped. "You're joking. You're… no, way!"

"But the real guest of honor is…" Chiyo glanced over her shoulder. "Er, Ms. Ayumu?"

Ayumu had quietly wandered over to one of the shelves and pulled a book out at random, and whatever she saw on it had her completely engrossed. She didn't respond at all until Sandra sneaked up behind her and lightly jabbed her side with a finger. With a loud chirrup of surprise (must be the scarf), Ayumu snapped out of her concentration and recovered herself to say, "Uh, hey."

"Well, you guys came at a good time," Kaori said, "I was just about to close up for the night. Sandra, could you go flip the sign?"

"You're a slave-driver," Sandra said on her way to the door.

"This is a very nice place," Chiyo commented, looking around. "Such ambiance!"

Kaori made a graceful gesture that encompassed the room. "_Olhos Do Ceu_," she intoned in a deep, mysterious voice, "For those with the courage and insight to explore the world _beyond_." Then she dropped out of character, shoulders rounding and arms falling to her side, with a decidedly un-mysterious giggle. "Of course, not everybody buys it. Their loss."

"So…" Now for the awkward part. "You, uh… masterminded Ayumu's escape, then?"

"Yes," Kaori sat on the counter and kicked her sandaled feet out. "Yes, and I know that you're probably doubting if we did the right thing. Trust me on this one, I know my stuff. In the concrete world…" she smiled softly. "…and _beyond_."

Chiyo stared for a few seconds. "Um, I'm sorry… but _beyond_? Do you have to italicize it?"

"Yeah, yeah I do. Sandra probably told you I was an expert, but I'm not really… I just have a few hard experiences behind me."

"I… I see."

"Look, we weren't ever really close, but I'm asking you to trust me here." Kaori leaned forward and spoke softly, emphatically. "You have to understand that I would never, _ever_ do anything I thought would hurt her. Ayumu's going to be fine."

"That's good ta hear," Ayumu said, right at her elbow.

"Yeep!" Kaori twisted to face her in shock. "Don't _do _that!"

"Sorry. Hey, ya think you could explain this t'me?"

Ayumu held one of the massive books out to the proprietress, who accepted it and turned it in her hands. The much-abused pages showed quite a lively scene; a golden cord was being pulled in opposite directions by a purple figure with green eyes and a black figure with purple eyes. Kaori could see that the cord had once been glittery, as were the lightning bolts that leapt from it in every direction and filled the page, but that aspect of the ink had faded. Hovering above them were three pairs of eyes, fading from white on the purple figure's side to dark green on the black figure's side.

"Aah…" Kaori shrugged. "These sorts of things only make sense long after they've stopped having any relevance. For example… um… we found this prediction made in the 18th century that three kings do battle in Sendai, and of the three, the demon would be defeated, though he would some day return."

"Wait, in Sendai?" Chiyo asked.

"What happened in…?" Ayumu snapped her fingers. "Oh, right. The three-headed guy and those freaky blue people."

"Hey!" Sandra snapped from across the store.

Kaori regained their attention. "Well, get this: Kazuki's family guardian monster was named King Caesar, then we had the 'space demon' King Ghidora, then we had Godzilla, which many people call the King of the Monsters. Bam." She crossed her arms. "How do you like that one? I think Ms. Sakaki was even mentioned in it, though there were about four ways to take that sentence."

"Wait a second, so according to that…?" Chiyo started uneasily.

"Well, it's best to take these things as they come. Actually, I just recently came across another that I found really interesting. Is it in this one?" She took the book she'd been flipping through before they entered. "Yeah, that's it. Here, I stuck it between two pages."

"Is that ballpoint pen?"

"Yes. This prophecy is three days old."

"Ooh, hot off the press!" Ayumu said happily.

"What?" Chiyo protested. "You can't just make something like that up!"

"Why not? The chopstick breakin' worked, didn' it?"

"Well…"

"All prophecies were new at one time or another," Kaori sounded as though she'd had this argument a few too many times. "This one was made by a guy who lives under a bridge in Roppongi. Here we go… 'In a fortnight or so, the purple goddess will return to the land of her birth to save the demon from himself. Perfect blackness will descend, but she will fling it back to the stars and the world be safe in the dragon's claws. Either that or we're all pretty much screwed.' He always seems to peter out near the end, I've noticed."

"That's very, uh…" Actually, Chiyo found it extremely unsettling. And for some reason, a feeling of vague frustration was rising in her… she felt as though she were watching a movie that kept foreshadowing and foreshadowing but nothing would ever just _happen_…

Three loud raps came at the door.

Sandra opened it a crack. "Sorry but we're close—oh, crap!"

"What's the—ohhh… _crap!_" Kaori sprang from the desk.

"Where? Did somebody track it in?" Ayumu asked, ignored.

The Xian girl was shoved aside to make way for their visitor, who was about her height but much more imposing. This was a person that everybody in Japan would recognize, but most counted themselves lucky never to have actually met. She wore the standard Gaijin fashion of black, shiny, flowing, "I got passed up for a role in _The Matrix_"-type clothes, and after years of being exposed to the stereotypical image of Goths, her dusky complexion seemed odd. Her darkened violet eyes roved over the stores occupants, pinning each of them in turn.

"Er, excuse me…?" Chiyo ventured in a small voice. "But who are you?

Ayumu's reaction was a little less diplomatic: "What the _hell _is that?" In truth, though, she wasn't concerned with the woman that stood before them; her eyes were focused on the air over her head.

"_Yukia._" Kaori hissed. "What are you doing here?"

"That's no way to greet an old colleague," Yukia replied calmly.

"We were never colleagues or anything else. Your mere existence is an insult to our art." Kaori stepped forward belligerently. "Why don't you leave before I call the police?"

"Oh, you're going to call the police on me?" Yukia smiled coldly. "Yes, that would do you a world of good. It would be best for us all if you cooperated—after all, I'm not sure I could hold _him _back if you raised a hand against me."

"Wh-who's _him_?" Chiyo asked, wondering about all the italics going around. It would be really be nice if people would stop using commonplace words to refer to fantastic things, really. Italicizing or adding a capital letter just doesn't cut it sometimes.

"It's moving…" Ayumu edged sideways and took her arm, still staring at the air above their visitor's head.

Yukia glanced towards them questioningly. "You can see-?"

And then, with a shockingly loud hiss, Sandra's dragon attacked her face. Now, the little beastie was painful enough when he was just happy to see you, what with the buffeting wings, lashing tail, barbed claws and needle-like teeth, but when he was actually _trying_ to take your face off it was another game altogether. Needless to say, Yukia lost her smug, superior composure pretty darn quick.

But while she yelled and flailed, something was happening above her. Three points of silvery light formed at uneven intervals, crackling and flashing menacingly. There was just time for Sandra to suggest, "Down-?" before…

Chiyo found herself lying on her back, staring at the ceiling through a snowstorm of whirling cinders. Ah, that was the remains of the merchandise that had been blasted apart by those… what, were they lightning bolts? It was a sign of her dazedness that she was proud to have figured out that much. She tried to rise, but her muscles wouldn't cooperate sufficiently.

Yukia brushed the flopping, twitching dragon aside with her foot and walked through the scattered debris, pausing over Ayumu for a few seconds but then turning towards Chiyo in surprise. She took hold of the prodigy's collar and hauled her into the air with improbable strength, and Chiyo was frustrated to note that her legs still weren't capable of putting her feet reliably beneath her.

"So it will fall to you, then?" Yukia said contemplatively as their eyes met. "_Tch! _I could hardly be so lucky."

"Whh…?" was about the best Chiyo could manage in reply.

"Shhh," Yukia set her down gently. "It's not time for me to kill you yet. Stay out of traffic until then, 'kay?"

"K-kill…?"

Yukia turned on her heel and started out the door, pausing by Sandra to say, "You didn't even know what I wanted. Turning a wild beast loose on me, honestly."

"You should talk," Sandra replied, who had just managed to make it up to her hands and knees. "You have lousy taste in pets, by the way."

"Well, you kept this one for a while, didn't you?" Yukia asked, reaching up to stroke the air. "To each their own." And with that, she made her exit.

For a time, there was quiet.

"She didn't have it together," Ayumu finally commented, sitting up painfully. "S'like what'd happen if I tried to be a supervillain. Did anybody else notice the…?" Her question dissolved in a fit of coughing.

Kaori was the first to make it to her feet. She moved quickly to lock the door, then turned and surveyed the carnage Yukia's single attack had made of her store. "Damn… this is the third time I've had to totally restock."

"The third? Does she come here often?" Chiyo asked from the ground.

"Never. The other two times were because I'd done something stupid." Kaori knelt next to the dragon. "Are you gonna be okay, little g- _ow!_" She shook her hand, but its teeth were firmly embedded. "Yep."

"What was that, a lightning strike?" Sandra sat against the wall and started concentrating on getting her legs to move. She seriously hoped it wasn't what she thought it was. "Messed us up pretty good."

Chiyo hauled herself up and put a hand on Ayumu's back, who was still coughing. "How did she do it, anyway? Is that something to do with your art, Ms. Kaori?"

"Huh? No! No, we're not wizards or anything like that."

"She didn't do nothin'…" Ayumu said. "It was… somethin' around her. Like, you know when Gathra came to help me, how he would fly all around us an' dice things up?"

"Uh… sure?"

"Same deal."

"Okay… it's late, and I don't want to deal with this right now." Kaori seemed fully recovered, though the dragon still hung off of her hand. "Chiyo, we can put you up for the night, if you like. I'm not sure how safe it is for you to be out and about, especially at this hour."

"I should head back. Ms. Sakaki will worry."

"Oh, you're staying with her?" Kaori asked. "Huh. Well, I can give you a ride back as soon feeling returns to my hands, okay?" As if he understood her, the dragon let go, flopping unceremoniously to the ground instead of landing with his usual catlike grace, and made his drunken way back to his master.

"Thank you." She needed time to think. There were certain undeniable advantages to staying with somebody as quiet and unintrusive as Sakaki.

"And Ayumu, if you wouldn't mind staying with us for a while?"

"I dunno, if I say yes am I gonna get blown up again?"

* * *

Chiyo shuffled into the living-room, unsurprised to see that her hostess had tried to stay up for her and equally unsurprised that she hadn't quite managed it. Sakaki dozed at the end of the couch, a news magazine resting at her feet where it had fallen. Chiyo made an attempt to wake her gently, but as soon as her hand came close, a static shock leapt between them with an audible _pow!_

"I'm so sorry!" Chiyo jumped back.

"What…?" Sakaki started, rubbing her arm, but she looked up in concern before her anxious guest could try to answer, "Are- are you all right?"

"Do I look bad?" When her friend hesitated, Chiyo added, "Be honest."

"Chiyo-chan…" she drew a deep breath, "You look like you were hit by a cement truck."

The younger girl sat down and leaned against her, laying her head on Sakaki's shoulder. "Well. I'm glad I look at least that good."

Sakaki put an arm around her and drew her closer. "You're trembling."

"Leftover charge… you got the worst of it just then." She giggled tiredly, and her voice started to take on a thick, drowsy quality. "You ever think back to our lives before the whole astral-visitation, giant-monster, alien-invasion thing? I really miss those days."

"Me, too."

"It's all so twisted and wrong… someone needs to… needs to…" she yawned. "Set things right. God, I'm so tired…" She slumped further into Sakaki, and her hip gave a solid crack in protest. "Stupid body… sometimes I feel like I'm just gonna fall apart. If you came home and found a… pile of Chiyo-parts on the floor, you'd put me back together, right?"

"You really need some sleep."

"Not making any sense, am I?"

"Sorry, no."

"Is it okay if I sleep here? You're really soft…" Now _there _was something she'd never say if she were fully in command of herself. Riding a swell of pity, Sakaki could only answer, "Of course."

"Thanks." Chiyo squirmed a little to get comfortable, then her breathing evened out and she was gone. After a minute or two, Maya emerged from Sakaki's room and pawed at her leg jealously. _Hey!_ his recriminating eyes said, _Only _I'm_ allowed to do that! _But instead of taking issue with the guest, he contented himself with jumping up and sprawling possessively over Sakaki's legs.

And so she dozed off again, buried to her ears in cuteness.


	7. While You Were Sleeping

(A/N--Credit where credit is due: I owe the concept of the third segment of this chapter to an offhand comment Lucinda the Maid made about the previous story. And I owe an astounding advance to Ryuhei Kitamura… concise monster battles!)

Sakaki conscientiously took her shoes off before entering Chiyo-chan's house and thanked the penguin that turned up to take her jacket. There was nobody else around, but she knew that she was expected. And sure enough, as she entered the main room, which was even more crazy-huge than she remembered it from her High School days, an oddly familiar egg-shaped being addressed her from the top of the staircase. "Yo, Ms. Sakaki. Glad you made it."

"Hello." Sakaki bowed, not questioning the need to be respectful to this freakish creature. "Have we met?"

"You don't remember me? Oh, you cut me to the quick!" It slid down the banister, hopping off where the stairs doubled back to drift the remaining two meters and touch down on the plush carpet before her. "I'm Chiyo's father!"

"Chiyo's father is an orange… an orange…?"

"_Cat,_" he supplied testily.

"An orange cat?"

"Well, that stings. I was going to congratulate you, too."

"Sorry."

The Chiyo-dad crossed his stringy, tentacle-like arms and his body took on a reddish tinge. "Hmph. I guess it's been a while. I just wanted to let you know that you're doing a great job protecting my daughter."

"I… I am?"

"I had my doubts, but you're pulling through very well."

"But I haven't been able to protect her from anything!"

"You're not supposed to keep bad things from happening to her, silly. Nobody can do that. Your job is to keep her together once they have."

For a ridiculous moment, Sakaki thought back to the comment Chiyo made before falling asleep. "She's going to fall apart?"

"No, stupid! I was speaking figuratively. Yeesh." He looked her in the eyes, which involved rotating his whole body and tilting backwards. "It's going to get harder on all of you, but I have every confidence that you're up to it."

She was starting to remember her dreams of the Chiyo-dad, and was amazed at how forward and to-the-point he was being. Most of the time, it had just seemed like he was messing with her. "Er, thanks. But what…?"

"There's someone I think you should meet, though."

Why did that innocuous suggestion give Sakaki chills?

* * *

At 3:30 AM, high winds rushed through the streets of Sendai, stirred by the colorful wings of the mightiest lepidopteron that ever lived. Everybody who saw her knew instantly that this wasn't the wanderer, that sinister and poorly-named Gigamoth, but none had ever seen anything like her.

Her body was covered by short white fur and her eyes glittered like huge faceted sapphires. Her wings were painted with bright splotches of color separated by narrow bands of black, arranged in wild, complex pattern that was at the same time perfectly orderly. Unlike the wings of the late Gathra, though, there was little threat of insanity from examining them.

There was no hint of her origin except for the tattered remains of a cocoon the size of an ocean liner found drifting off the shore of Hokkaido. By happenstance, the SDF gave her the codename Mothra and never discovered their lucky guess.

Mothra winged her way over the city, passing right by its guardian monster, who didn't attack her in spite of his controller's frantic orders. And so the authorities were reduced to simply watching her progress… but she didn't do anything remotely unpleasant, apart from issuing the occasional loud, piercing chirp. Rather than fiery destruction, all that followed her was a vague, flowery scent that nobody could place.

So she was free to soar on the winds of Earth for the first time in decades. If the occasion of her visit weren't so grim, Mothra might have even enjoyed her flight. Even for twenty-thousand-ton moth goddesses, though, it's hard to enjoy oneself when a painful evisceration by a member of your family threatened.

* * *

Sakaki found herself wearing a swimsuit and wide-brimmed sunhat, standing on a strange beach. The sand, warm and fine beneath her bare feet, was perfectly black, as were the thick, tumbling clouds that filled the sky. The sun was apparently setting, evidenced by the faint fingers of red light that emerged through the overcast over the water, painting it that same bloody hue. In fact, now that she looked around, Sakaki found that she couldn't see any colors in any direction except for black and red… and pink?

Chiyo—not the young woman Sakaki had so recently met, but little, ten-year-old Chiyo-chan—sat in the sand nearby, pink swimsuit and pale legs standing out sharply against the darkness. She was working on a sand-castle, and like everything Chiyo tried her hand at, it was turning out spectacularly. In fact, it had sort of a Castlevania look to it, like a cross between a stereotypical European castle and a Gothic cathedral. It was easy to imagine a two-centimeter tall Count Dracula waking up in there and going, "Bleaah! I vont to suck your bluud!"

"Oh, hey, Sakaki," Chiyo greeted casually, glancing up.

Her eyes, Sakaki noted without particular concern, were darker than normal. A deep, dark reddish-brown that fit the landscape about them perfectly. The taller girl (or woman—oddly, though Chiyo seemed to be her old self from high school, Sakaki's form was current) sat down alongside and watched her with interest. Chiyo was working her way down one of the square towers, adding windows with deft little flicks of her tiny fingernails.

"I notice that you're not full of questions. Cat got your tongue?"

"No," Sakaki replied. "You don't look like you want to be disturbed."

"Hmm… sometimes I think you're _too_ accepting, Sakaki. What if you'd been brought here so that I could kill you? That might be nice to know."

"You wouldn't do that."

"Wouldn't I? Do you even know who I am?"

There was something truly unsettling about being asked that by someone you'd known for years. In spite of herself, Sakaki shivered. "Who?"

"I am…" Chiyo stood and kicked the castle over in a spray of dark grit, ruining the work of who knows how long. "Chiyo Mihama's _aramitama. _You should really be more careful."

"You're…" Sakaki swallowed. "Evil Chiyo-chan?"

"Evil?" The girl pondered this. "Sometimes, I suppose. But you know, it's _rough_ spirit, not _evil _spirit. Some people have this self-centered idea that just because a spirit is smiting them with blizzards and earthquakes that it's evil."

"I… see."

"I'm not going to hurt you, if you're worried about that. There are a few people I'd like to, but in all the years I've known you, I'm not sure you've done anything to make me even slightly angry, except for maybe a little condescension."

"Condescension?"

"I'm used to it anyway."

Sakaki wasn't ready to drop it, though. "I condescend to you?"

"Sometimes. Forget about it, everybody does. By the way, that's something the gentle spirit never would have admitted to you. Aren't you glad you met me?"

"I…"

"Probably not. Still and all, we had to sooner or later, and as you can see," she indicated ten-year-old self, "I don't get out much."

Sakaki was reeling. So that meant that there were times that Chiyo had been not-Chiyo and she hadn't even realized? No, worse: there were times when Chiyo had been somebody else… _and still Chiyo_. And the fact that she had an _aramitama_ implied something else, too. "Does everybody have a…?"

"Of course not."

"Does that mean you're a…?"

"It could. Now, look, we don't have much time." The sunset continued its inevitable course and the world about them faded towards pitch-black. "I just wanted you to know that I existed. I didn't want you to think you had me totally figured out, not by a long shot."

Odd. She was using "I" to refer to both Chiyo the whole person and Chiyo's darker side interchangeably. It made sense, actually; if a person had two souls, would either of them be any less that person? Sakaki started to protest that she'd never thought she had Chiyo totally figured out, but then realized that maybe, in an unconscious sort of way, she had. What came out instead was, "You don't seem like a very rough spirit."

"Because I'm not killing people or bringing misfortune down on you? Yeah, you're right." Chiyo sat down and started tracing one of her dainty feet with a black twig. "I'm a pretty soy-based rough spirit, actually. I don't even enjoy hurting people, which you'd think is a prerequisite. But then again, at least I'm _able _to." Sakaki didn't respond. "Say, now that we've formally met, maybe you can watch for me!"

"H-huh?"

"Most people can't, but you know me well enough… you should be able to tell when I'm out. I'm less polite, crankier, more impulsive…" she suddenly grinned, showing off pronounced canines. "And I'm quite a bit more forward about getting what I want."

Sakaki's only response was to look a little distressed.

"Eh," Chiyo waved dismissively. "You won't remember most of this anyway. And you should probably get going; it wouldn't be good for you to be here when it gets totally dark."

"What about you?"

"Me? Why, I love the dark! Later days, Andrea."

* * *

Gigamoth faded into existence over Hong Kong and immediately set out. Unlike his other appearances, it was obvious that he had a specific mission in mind. And unlike the case of his benevolent counterpart, Hong Kong's resident monster, the repulsive Kumounga, had no reservations about attacking him.

The spider monster scaled the side of a skyscraper, spreading his massive weight over several buildings, and started to build a web in his target's path. Frustratingly, his handiwork was diced by astral blades almost as soon as he'd started. Gigamoth flew carelessly past him, ignoring the jet of webbing that played over one of his wings and coated it with ropy strands.

In a move he surely hadn't picked up from his little cousins on the ground, Kumounga hurled himself through the air and tried to land on Gigamoth's back, but by this point it should be fairly obvious how that worked out for him.

_VOIP, VOIP, VOIP, VOIP!

* * *

_

"Ayumu, wake up."

Her eyes opened, and for just a moment she wondered why she was breathing so hard. Oh, yes, that damnable dream again… this time the acid spewing monster had taken the form of a towering, misshapen humanoid, walking (maybe schlepping was a better word to describe its pulpy stride) through the dream-city while its inhabitants writhed and suffered. Ayumu had stood in the middle of the street, knowing that it had finally come for her, and its lopsided, blood-shot eyes had finally fallen on her when Kaori's voice cut across the dream.

"Oh, hiya," she said, as casually as she could manage.

Kaori sat by her bed in a nightshirt that somehow managed to give her the same dignified air as the kimono had. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

"It sounded like quite a nightmare."

"Sorry, did I wake ya?"

"Don't worry about that," Kaori seemed to hesitate. "…you called out for Tomo."

Ayumu blinked. "Really?"

"Yes. She was a good friend to you, wasn't she?"

"The best."

"I bring this up because," Kaori paused. She liked to go into these things with more of a plan, but she'd already started the sentence. "Just then, there weren't any Astral forces working on you. It'd been my theory, what with the description of the monster, but… for whatever reason, you're torturing _yourself_ with these dreams."

"Can we do this when I'm actually awake?" Ayumu smiled distantly. "'Least, awake as I ever get?"

Kaori nodded. "That would be best." Just as she stood to leave, though, her chi-senses tingled. The warning from beyond was made moot, however, by the subtle aroma of jasmine that suddenly wafted through the room.

"Aw, man!" Ayumu covered her face. "It's not one thing, it's another!"

* * *

Mothra and her counterpart finally met over the Gobi Desert as the first gentle strokes of dawn were showing on the horizon. The combined beating of their wings kicked up an impressive sandstorm, so their surreal showdown took place between two endless planes of cloud, one above and one below.

Gigamoth was normally more reserved and cautious, but he instantly knew what the other was about. He rose with a few strident beats and then swooped down towards his foe, a trio of glowing green blades streaking beneath his flight. However, with a sound that was a combination of arcing electricity and teeth on a blackboard, they were intercepted by an array of bright pink blades.

Mothra turned sharply in the air and rose after her foe, firing a twin crackling beams from her antenna that scourged across his back and set the clinging webbing alight. Gathra twisted and tried to slash her again as she passed beneath him, but again he was parried. Green beams leapt from his eyes after her, but she avoided them with the first lepidopterous barrel-roll in history.

Both parties started releasing scales from their wings, GM's flashing and glittering while Mothra's glowed softly, and so the beams were negated. There followed a ludicrous dogfight of two titanic moths darting about with agility and speed that shamed their tiny counterparts, their every meeting marked by a vicious flurry of blinding astral blades.

In spite of his cunning, ruthlessness and strength, Gigamoth was unused to being on the defensive and no match for the experience and wisdom of his ancient foe. Mothra nicked and gashed him with every exchange like a fencer, sapping his strength. His wings were soon tattered with pencil-straight cuts as transparent, blue-purple blood ran down his body in sheets.

A particularly violent pass scored Mothra across her nonexistent snout and both combatants backpedaled sharply away, facing off over the churning mayhem their fight had made of the desert. Gigamoth knew that it was now or never; he had one last chance to make sure that he took Mothra down with him.

Like huge insectile samurai, they shot past each other for one final stroke, each making a single cataclysmic cut. And as if both sensed the end of their battle, neither bothered to turn and continue the attack. They hovered back-to-back, waiting… waiting…

And then Gigamoth fell from the air, body already dissolving to blow free with the Gobi's sands. But where he had been, something _still _hovered… a faint, insubstantial form that was similar and yet could not have been any more different.

Gathra was finally free.

* * *

After an instant of unadulterated panic, Sakaki realized that she hadn't slept in because she had the day off. It took her another moment to realize why she was in the living room and what the soft weight resting alongside her was. As always, Maya woke at almost the same moment. His sardonic look might have said, _You've got yourself in quite a fix, haven't you?_ but then, it was a bad habit of Sakaki's to attribute humanlike traits to the charming Yamamaya. Maya yawned and hopped down to see if food had magically appeared in his dish, but he could make do if it hadn't. After all, there were plenty of unsuspecting birds and rodents outside.

She considered leaving the couch to Chiyo and getting some breakfast, but the prodigy shifted against her with an adorable little sigh, and Sakaki realized that she was trapped. And so she settled back, content and comfortable, the kitty-and-puppy obsessed eight-year-old deep inside of her gleefully chanting, _I have a Chiyo-chan!_

"I'm disgusting, aren't I?" Chiyo murmured.

"What?" Sakaki started. "No, you're…!"

"I wasn't fishing, Ms. Sakaki. Please let me finish."

Stopped cold by the unfamiliar experience of being interrupted by Chiyo (or was it?), Sakaki complied.

"Everybody always wants to hold me and protect me," Chiyo continued. "I suppose it's mainly because I'm so… _cute_. Still, I resolved never to let myself get used to it, never to rely too much on my friends; it would be very inconsiderate of me, do you see?"

"Mm." Sakaki didn't know what to say. Was relying on your friends so inconsiderate? What were friends for?

"But instead I come whimpering in here and just… sprawl all over you. I'm sorry."

"I don't mind. Really."

"I do," Chiyo replied, without moving. "But after years of being handled with kid's gloves, I don't think I'm strong enough to handle it any other way. And look at me now… why do I have to bother you with this? Weak."

Something about the bitter, un-Chiyo tone in her voice made Sakaki try to recall her dream, but it was gone. She looked down to find the prodigy gazing up at her, and they ended up awkwardly staring at each other for about five seconds, noses only centimeters apart. The older girl was searching her friend's eyes for something, she didn't know what, but ended up deeply relieved not to have found whatever it was.

Chiyo smirked slightly. "What?"

"N-nothing. Sorry."

"Well, such is life." The prodigy stood and stretched… then blinked in pleasant surprise when her joints failed to object. She worked her arm in a circle, but nary a crack came. "How about that? I think this is the first morning in years I haven't felt lousy."

"It's not really morning," Sakaki felt constrained to remind her.

"Near enough! Hey, do you think I could meet Mr. Takeda soon?"

Sakaki wondered about her sudden turnaround, but there was really nothing to do but roll with it. Pushing her worry aside, Sakaki set about to plan her day with a suddenly sunny and chattering Chiyo.

* * *

Ayumu slept solidly until the middle of the afternoon, which wasn't really a surprise. Fortunately, the visitation that night had come to an end fairly quickly (or so Kaori thought) and it hadn't threatened her like before. Now she sat up on her bed, noting with mingled gratitude and annoyance that Kaori was still hanging around, reading one of her mighty tomes.

"Hey, shouldn't ya get some sleep?"

"Huh?" Kaori jumped, startled out of the book. "Nah, I wasn't up the whole time."

"Won't come back, ya know."

"Would you prefer to be left alone?"

Well, that made things easy. "Yeah."

Kaori closed her book, sketched a bow and left. Once she was well and truly gone, Ayumu smiled and held out an arm as if to let something land on it. Then, raising a pillow over her head like a mace, she called softly, "You can come out now."


	8. Exit the Bug

Shimmering wings fluttered at the edge of sight, but neither they nor the creature's faint fragrance held any menace for Ayumu. Contact was welcome, and far from killing her, his tiny weight atop her head filled her with warmth and vigor… both of which she had a good use for. She would have simply sat back and enjoyed their reunion, but there was something to take care of first.

She waited patiently, poised to strike, until the Shobijin finally decided that it really was safe and emerged from around the mighty tome Kaori had left in her chair. "Ayumu Kasug-!" they started, then Lefty dove to the side as the pillow crashed down on her sister like a big puffy asteroid. "_Agaa!_"

"What the _hell _did you do to mah baby?"

"Stupid!" Righty snapped, "We didn't- _agaa!_"

"Why doncha be more civil? I'm the one with the pillow, here!"

"And if Mothra comes to knock down your house?" Righty growled, rising once more.

"I don't got one! Ha!"

"This isn't helping anything," Lefty admonished. "Come now, stop beating up my sister and let us explain."

Ayumu set the pillow aside, sat up and crossed her arms in a classic _'this had better be the best explanation I've ever heard in my life'_ stance. Atop her head, Gathra took its moth equivalent, mute as ever. "'Kay. Hit me."

"Ayumu Kasuga!" they started again, and this time the sky didn't fall. "It was a terrible thing that was done to you, but it was done for a reason. Twice, Gathra had overstepped himself and intervened in battles that were none of his business to protect you!"

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"It wouldn't, to you," Righty pointed out. The corner of Ayumu's mouth quirked upward, but she didn't interrupt as they continued. "A Guardian's presence in the world holds the door open for anti-Guardians, demons of the darker planes. This is why Mothra must be reborn and then die every time the world is threatened, and why we could not allow your son to continue as he was. That is why you both had to forget."

"But why'd he turn inta that… that…"

"We hadn't considered that the difference between the noble Gathra and the vampiric monster he became was in you, Ayumu. Without your spirit to guide him, he was a loathsome and corrupt creature that lived only to kill and suck the life out of others. It is good that you were wise enough to avoid going to him in this state; he would have killed you as well."

Ayumu reached up and ran her fingers over the invisible, fuzzy back of her son. As bad as the past few years had been for her, they must have been even more terrible for him. She'd merely been mortally confused and terrified… but he'd been twisted into another being entirely!

"The presence of you and your sisters has warped the astral plane around Earth beyond recognition. There was a time when we could see our path into the future as clearly as you could see a road before you, but now a shroud has fallen over the world. When we were faced with your son, we could not have known what would happen, only that we had to do something."

"Aheh…" she thought back to the giant artichoke and arachnid monsters. "Guess I was goin' crazy anyway, so…"

"Actually," Lefty said, rolling over her sister's silent objection, "If not for the astral visitations and monsters, you'd be a well-known author dating the frontman of a small-time rock band and… _agaa!_ "

"Sorry, ah couldn't resist. Y'really shoulda kept your mouth shut." Ayumu tossed the pillow aside. It was a good thing she'd struck before the priestess got to 'And Tomo would be graduating from the Academy about now.' "But I guess none o' that means anything to me, now."

"That's true," the priestesses looked at each other. "We will probably never meet again. Your son… he is no longer a Guardian. We don't know what he has become and it is not our place to investigate, for soon Mothra must leave the Earth altogether."

"What? But… but the aliens!"

"Are the natural enemy of another, who will rise to fight them. Or not." And just like that, the Shobijin were gone. Ayumu sat back, struck by a massive feeling of anticlimax. She had hoped that her reckoning with Mothra would be more… cataclysmic. But then, in a cataclysmic encounter with something like that, most of the cataclysmicness would end up coming down on _her_ head, wouldn't it?

"So…" she, asked, stroking Gathra again. "How was dyin' for _you_?"

* * *

The Black Hole People were not great builders of monuments, but nobody ignores monuments when they present themselves. So it was that when they were handed the perfect way to commemorate their victory over Earth, they didn't waste it.

The conventional military had been no match for the attacking swarm of monsters, but there _had_ been effective resistance. A corporation called Mihama Industries had built a tremendous robot, a mechanical dragon that towered over all but the largest of the invaders' thralls, and it had stood to fight them in this plain.

Here it still stood, frozen where it had finally run out of power, coated in corrosion and slowly, ever-so-slowly leaning as the earth shifted beneath its incredible weight. (The rust was because Space Titanium, as you may have guessed from its name, likes oxygen and water even less than other metals.) Heaped at its feet were the bones of all the Gaijin monsters it had killed; after all, it doesn't hurt to show how powerful a defeated adversary had once been.

Masema leaned on the historical marker a half a kilometer away, taking in the sight of the monolith as it was silhouetted in the rising sun. He was enjoying it so thoroughly that it didn't even break his composure when Yukia turned up suddenly in his blind spot, as was her wont.

"The only person that can stand against me is a complete weakling," she said without preamble. "If nothing changes, you'll have your war."

"Good." Masema didn't turn. "We must make our move shortly. The Supreme Commander is talking about releasing our collateral prisoners as a gesture of good faith, and I refuse to allow this to happen."

"Just, just one thing…" Yukia glanced over her shoulder and edged closer to him. "I'm going to need you to kidnap some people for me."

"Not a problem. By the way, did you hear that Gigamoth was killed?"

"_What?_" Yukia shrieked, and the Commander's bodyguards thirty meters down the road jerked in surprise. "By who? When?"

"Last night," Masema answered, enjoying her panic. "Another creature like him appeared and killed him."

"This other creature, did our monsters show any… reluctance to attack it?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"_We have to kill it!_" Yukia stood on her toes and grabbed both of his lapels. "I know what it is and it can ruin _everything!_"

"Unhand me!" Masema barked.

Yukia let him go but didn't back off. "Don't let it live. You can't do anything against the Earthmen as long as it's alive!"

"But if our monsters won't attack it, what can we do?"

"Well, we have _one _creature that might," Yukia turned away from him and gripped the marker. "If you can stand to release him, that is."

"You mean the one we took from the Xians?" Masema grinned. "All right! I've been waiting for _years_ to turn him loose!"

* * *

"Imagine my surprise," Kagura said as she entered Yomi's humble abode. "Not only invited to your home, but at a decent hour, no less! I didn't know you ever came back here before 8! Are you turning into a 9-to-5 worker? You slacker."

"Oh, shut up." Yomi was still in her work clothes, leaning back in an easy chair with a small glass in one hand and an ice pack in the other. The ice pack would be normal Yomi-after-work, but the glass…

"Hey, isn't it too early to be drinking, though?"

"Yes." Yomi took a long sip. "It is."

"And won't you be hung-over tomorrow? I mean, it's not the weekend yet, not that that sort of thing matters to you…"

"I'm going to call in sick tomorrow."

"Wow, this sounds serious," Kagura dragged another chair over and sat down next to her. "Any of that for me?"

"Help yourself."

"So… I assume you didn't call me so we could get hammered together. That'd be fun, but it doesn't seem like your kinda thing."

"Eh…" She seemed a little peaked, and it looked like she was having trouble breathing, but Yomi was still perfectly lucid. Perhaps it was just going to be the drink in her hand. Perhaps. "It's all just caught up with me. You know how too much stress weakens your immune system."

"Your whole body, really," Kagura nodded. "Yeah. But that isn't all, is it?"

"No, I wish."

They sat for quite a long time, the only sound the ticking of an old clock hanging above the television. Kagura really _was_ reminded of a prison cell, now that she was sitting here and not just blowing on through. "So… you gonna tell me about it?"

"Today Those Bastards' second-in-command came in and had a shouting match with our ambassador over the collater… Kagura, do you know about the collateral prisoners?"

"Nope."

"Not many people do. It's the sort of thing that could set off riots."

"Well now I _have_ to know."

"I figured you would," Yomi sighed. "But don't tell anybody I told you."

"You can count on me."

"They're… they're why there isn't more of a resistance to the aliens. Something like three-thousand prisoners in a kind of… suspended animation or cold sleep or something. About a quarter of them were chosen strategically, but the rest were taken more or less at random, you know, during the riots. They can be released or killed based on how well we Earthmen behave."

"That's…" Kagura took a swallow of her drink. It was fiercely bitter. "Shit, dude."

"And every time I hear about them, all those poor people, all I can think of is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, one of them is…" Yomi drained the rest of her glass. "But that's a stupid thing to pin your hopes on."

"But what if…"

"And on the other hand, if this Masema guy gets his way, they'll all be killed. Three thousand people and all I can worry about is this stupid little ghost of a chance… ugh."

"Hey, take it easy," Kagura said. "They'd never do that, right? Just kick back and take a break, Yomi. No one can say you haven't earned it."

"I can."

"But you won't."

"Oh?"

"Are we gonna have to throw down, here?"

* * *

Maya entered through the pet door looking very pleased with himself; apparently he'd found his breakfast scampering around in the yard. Passing right by his filled dishes, he padded up to Sakaki at the kitchen table and tried to hop up into her lap, which he was a mite too large to manage without a little jostling and scrambling. As she stroked the big cat, Sakaki happened to glance up and notice a note folded on the table.

Moving even more silently than Maya, Chiyo finished packing in the living room, wincing at the sound of her duffel's zipper. Hefting it with a soft grunt, she started towards the front door in an exaggerated stealth-walk, careful to maneuver the bag around various breakables. She hesitated in the entryway and looked back sadly, reflecting that this probably wasn't the nicest way to make her exit. It couldn't be helped, though; the memory of her encounter with the Gaijin woman and what it meant had hit her in the head like a sledgehammer in the middle of their little planning session. Screwing her resolve to the sticking place, Chiyo turned back to the door…

…and ran up against an immovable wall of irritated veterinary assistant.

"M-ms. Sakaki! What…?"

"I read fast," Sakaki said flatly.

"So… so you know why I…"

"I'm amazed that you think so little of me," she continued. Her expression was bland in the same manner as an endless, featureless tract of blazing desert. By contrast, her voice was as cold and level as ever, but Chiyo couldn't hear any warmth hiding behind it. Was this… angry Sakaki?

"I… huh?"

"Why do you think I didn't argue against your coming?" Sakaki didn't normally speak at length, and didn't here. The result was long, awful pauses between her sentences that Chiyo didn't have the courage to interject in. "We both knew it was dangerous for you to come. Didn't you think that I'd make arrangements for your safety? Or my own? You wouldn't be protecting anything by sneaking off. And once you did, did you think that they somehow wouldn't find you if you checked into a Sunroute Hotel? Did you imagine that you'd be able to get into a plane without their knowing?"

"You… but… I…" Chiyo quavered. "But what if you get hurt because…?"

Sakaki softened. "Why didn't you just talk to me?"

"B-because…" the girl smiled bashfully. "Because _this_ would probably happen. I wanted to do what I thought would be right, and I didn't… you… oh," she said a word in English that her mother probably wouldn't have appreciated hearing. "…I'm the dumbest prodigy that ever lived, aren't I? I'm sorry, Ms. Sakaki."

"It's okay." What else could Sakaki say? She'd been expecting something dramatic and pathologically selfless ever since Chiyo had staggered in after her Gaijin attack. "This… wasn't a surprise."

"So, um," Chiyo stepped back and set her duffel down. "What do we do now?"

"Lunch, I assume." Just like that, it was like nothing had happened. "Then we'll go to meet Takeshi, like you wanted to."

Chiyo warmed to the change in subject. "Would you like to visit Ms. Kaori's, too? They're probably busy restocking, but I'm sure they'd be happy to see you."

Sakaki briefly let herself imagine seeing Xandra, Kaori and Ayumu again all in one go… then shook her head. "I shouldn't. It would be… awkward."

"I, I think that Ms. Kaori is over the…"

"That isn't it. It's Xandra's dragon."

"Her dragon?"

"Does he ever fly?" By this point, they'd reached the kitchen and Chiyo took a seat at the table. Maya brushed by her legs, prompting her to reach down to pet him, answering, "Not very often, that I saw. He sleeps most of the time. Why?"

"He hasn't healed yet, then." Sakaki said sadly. "It… pets… sometimes don't like each other." Maya yawned, showing off his lethal dental battery, and wandered away. Chiyo looked after him, wondering if there was _anyone_ that didn't have a hidden dark side these days.

* * *

One of the sights in Tokyo that Chiyo hadn't seen was the crystal tower at its center. (Though huge, it was dwarfed by the modern skyscrapers around it and only visible from nearby.) This was the structure that held the Black Hole People's ultimate space monster! When Masema gave his fateful order, this tower split open in an astounding but honestly fairly generic lightshow. A smaller formation of crystal shot from its depths and whipped out over the city, aimed towards the distant Gobi.

Mothra rested atop a rugged mountain, waving her wings drowsily. She had just one more thing to do before she left Earth forever, and there was no need to rush into it. Sure enough, the crystal shell that bore her nemesis came streaking over the desert, kicking up another sandstorm along the way. It tried to plow through her, but she lifted off at the last moment and casually flew over it.

The shell skipped across the mountain tops and crashed down a distance away. There, another lightshow ensued as it cracked apart and unfolded into the fabled monster… Space Godzilla! (What, were you expecting somebody else?) The interplanetary brute looked very similar to a blue-tinted version of our homegrown Monster King, but even more massive, with great spikes of crystal jutting from his shoulders. The Xians would have you believe that he was also stronger and meaner, but that's open to debate.

As Mothra looked him over, varicolored light flashed around his spines and the growths from his shoulders. She made no move to evade or counter when a blue-red-gold beam roared from his gullet and lashed towards her… then struck an invisible barrier as though it were the discharge from a squirt gun, continuing to roll and wash about the surface of a perfect sphere around her.

He tried again and yet one more time as she flew there peaceably, and the beam failed to strike home each time. By the time he decided to try closing with her, it was too late; making her first move since avoiding his charge, Mothra sent the sphere of his own energy rumbling towards him like a vast, unstoppable bowling ball of death.

SG actually waved his arms in panic as the sphere engulfed him and exploded; it was exactly the sort of finishing blow that Bob Saget would have added a funny (or allegedly funny) sound effect to. Thus the Gaijin's trump card found himself lying insensate at the base of a kilometer-wide crater, blearily watching Mothra as she flew skyward, slowly fading away.

Her last act as Earth's Guardian had been to teach its new masters humility.


	9. Two Giants Emerge!

(A/N: Space Godzilla made a brief cameo at the end of "Osaka vs. the Space Monster" as the centerpiece of the Xian's second invasion, which was thwarted by the Prince. His is another movie that I wish I could recommend you see, but I really can't.  
Jumbo, on the other hand, comes from Kiyohiko Azuma's _Yotsuba&!_, which I can heartily recommend without reservation.)

* * *

Both Sanada and the newly lanky Chiyo-chan have been called colossi in these pages, while Sakaki has been referred to as looking positively gigantic. What, then, was Takeshi "Jumbo" Takeda? There was only one word for it: the man was _epic_. He was the sort of fellow who regularly smacked his head off of door frames, was forced to get all of his clothes specially tailored and had to turn showerheads _up _to get his shoulders wet… assuming he could even fit in the stall.

He could have pursued a lucrative career as a bouncer, dock worker or even bear wrestler, but rather than take up an occupation that took advantage of his mighty proportions, he'd decided to carry on his father's business as a florist. You'd never guess it to look at him, but he was a master of bringing out the best in plants, even though, as Chiyo had noticed earlier, he _did _tend to water them a little too much sometimes.

All most people saw when they beheld (a less dramatic word than "beheld" just wouldn't fit) Jumbo was his size. They didn't often notice that he wasn't bad looking, in a scruffy, blocky sort of way, or that his hair spiked in a manner that Sakaki assured him was very charming. Beholders were often surprised by his gentleness, but learning from an early age to contain their beastly strength is the way of most huge people.

He lived quite a ways from his shop but walked practically every day, gas prices being what they were. Once he got there, the day would be a long one; the help had quit one by one as flowers became less and less important and the increasing workload had made him progressively grouchier, driving his employees off even faster until here he was running a one-man show in the middle of an occupied city. Fun.

Today was even longer than usual. If only it were because he had more customers than normal… but no, it was his precious few just being particularly difficult. He found peace in arranging a large basket with the distracted-but-caring air of a High School teacher (who was not Yukari), but was almost instantly jerked out of his meditation by the shop's dorky little bell. _Pa-king-king-king!_

Jumbo growled softly. Today was just not his day.

"Are you Takeshi Takeda, who is known to Andrea Sakaki?" the blue spaceman asked, making Jumbo drop his flower arrangement and stare for a few seconds. Close encounters of the third kind _always_ went "clunk" like this. You wander around, minding your own business in your own little world and then _clunk!_ you're talking to a space alien and don't know what to do or say.

This particular Xian was a little guy with a sharp, vulpine face, and long snowy hair done into a tight braid of a stereotypically Chinese style. Even though he stood to about Jumbo's elbow, the florist had to fight the urge to shrink from him. "Who wants to know?" he asked carefully.

"Nobody you'd want to be associated with," the visitor replied, grinning humorlessly to reveal a tooth that matched his golden eyes. "But if you don't leave with me now, you'll fall in with an even worse crowd."

"Now hold on! I have a business to run."

He grabbed Jumbo's arm and started to walk away, but it was like trying to pull an oak tree. "See here, you great oaf! I'm trying to help you!" He considered adding _before I break your leg and drag you away, _but his people skills had improved considerably since his bride-kidnapping assignment all those years ago.

Jumbo was usually good natured about people riffing on his size, but he wasn't inclined to take it from this guy. "Maybe if you explained…" he started angrily, but then sirens started wailing in the distance and his spine turned to ice. The faint vestige of intuition deep within him was quivering. "Wait. Is that for me?"

"Could be," the visitor confirmed.

"What? But what the heck did _I _do?"

"It's not what you did, it's who you know. Now would you come on, or do I have to break your leg and…?"

* * *

Sakaki never explained exactly what "measures" she had taken, though it was evident that she put her faith in them completely. Under this repressive regime where effective resistance was precluded, an umbrella of passive defenses, covert organizations and sympathetic officials had formed over the people. It was never made clear which of the "Gray Charities" Sakaki had called upon, but it didn't matter in the end. She hated skullduggery anyway.

Unfortunately, it was swiftly catching up to her.

"You know, I just realized something," Kaori said suddenly, sitting up at her counter/desk. The reinventory lugs were carting new shelves full of merchandise in; one had thought to ask what had happened to all the stuff she had before, but a long, angry stare had answered him well enough. By now she knew most of the guys by name, and they'd long since learned not to wonder what went on in her store after-hours.

"Eh?" Xandra glanced up from her magazine. "What?"

"Chiyo-chan didn't act weird around me, did you notice? She didn't get leery or anything."

"Huh, guess you're right," Xandra agreed with a faint smile. "Well, she always was really polite. Maybe she was smart enough to watch us and see for herself? I think of everyone who knew about the Sakaki thing, she was in the best position to know what it was."

"That must be it. Refreshing, though, wasn't it?"

Ayumu wandered down the stairs along the store's edge, looking slightly more glazed than usual. Without seeming to actually notice it, she wove quietly through the bustling restock and joined them. "What's all this for?" she asked.

Kaori blinked. "Um… everything was blown up last night, remember?"

"Oh, right," Ayumu nodded. "Makes sense."

"Sleep well?" Xandra asked, thinking of the "visitation" that night.

"Yeah. Well, sorta…" She pondered her answer for a moment. "No, yeah."

"Um… well, as long as you're well rested. I was just about to head up, actually. Kazuki'll probably be along some time today and I figured you'd want to see him."

"Kazuki?" Ayumu's eyes lit up. "Wow… it's been forever an' a week!"

"He usually comes on Thursdays to see if we got anything new. Won't he be surprised?"

"Probably not," Kaori answered. "It's not like this hasn't happened before."

"He might be surprised it wasn't _you _this time, though," Xandra smiled impishly. "I think by this point we're all just waiting for the next time you blow the place up."

"Ms. Aida?" One of the lugs held out a clipboard. Kaori fixed her co-proprietress with a _look_ and didn't let it falter even as she accepted the board, signed slowly and handed it back without looking. After a few more seconds, though, she finally gave in and started laughing. _Why do we always get the weirdoes?_ the reinventory guy wondered as he walked away.

Organizing their new haul of merchandise took a few hours and Ayumu was more of a hindrance than a help in this; unsurprisingly, she had some pretty strange ideas about what should go where. But then, she was such fun to have along that it didn't bother them much anyway.

"Everything's new!" a male voice marveled as they finished up. Kazuki had apparently managed to enter without setting off the entrance bell, and now meandered through the light shelving in a state of mingled interest and dismay.

Kaori always thought that Kazuki should have been a girl. He was only a little taller than them, slender and soft of build, with large, almost perpetually half-lidded eyes and long eyelashes. For all of that, his hands were surprisingly inelegant, which made his skill with a brush an even greater surprise. "Hi, guys, I…"

Ayumu walked up behind him and dropped her cold, delicate hands over his eyes. "Guess who?"

"Yuki Matsuoka?"

"Nope."

"Zhang Ziyi!"

"Nope."

"…mom?"

"Are you even trying?"

"Help me out, here! Wait…" he suddenly whirled and grabbed her in a fierce hug, completing the turn with her in tow. "_Osaka!_ Heyyy!"

"Hi…" The Space Cadet staggered and leaned against a shelf. Even that half-turn was enough to make her a little dizzy. "Whoa."

"Sorry about that," he said sheepishly. "Wow, where have you been?"

"Asylum."

His grin faltered. "…oh."

"Crud, I was s'posed to gloss that over, wasn't I?"

"Er… probably." He scratched his neck uncomfortably. "Uh, but you're okay now?"

"Oh, doin' just great!" Ayumu waved a dismissive hand. "Geesh! Spend a couple months in an asylum and everyone acts like there's something _wrong_ with you!"

Well if she wanted to make light of her situation, who was _he_ to drag things down? "G-good to hear! I guess."

"An' where've you been?"

"Living out in Chiba with Sanada. I draw stuff for a living now."

"Y'always were good at that. You figured out a good way to draw blood yet?"

"No, actually, the color never comes out right."

"I find a pencil works pretty well if ya don't mind gettin' a little graphite in ya."

Kazuki opened his mouth to reply but didn't know what to say. Was she kidding? He had never learned how to tell. But fortunately, when you're talking Ayumu, you only have to hold out for a few seconds before a random subject change would hit. And sure enough…

"Say, Kazuki, y'know that statue you got?"

"You mean the coin bank that looks like a frog?"

"No, no, no, the one that turns into a giant monster when the rising sun strikes its eyes? Looks like he's constipated? The Shiisa!"

"Oh, right! Yeah, what about it?"

"You still got 'im?"

"Nope. Why do you ask?"

"Ah, just curious." The possible doom of the human race hadn't even crossed her mind.

* * *

"It's getting late," Kagura said apologetically. Fortunately, that one glass was all the alcohol Yomi had enjoyed, and so their visit turned out to be very pleasant and low-key. Kagura was glad, for in spite of her joke, there wasn't much about getting drunk that appealed to her. "I have to get up early for some Enryu stuff tomorrow, so I'd better go."

"Yeah," Yomi nodded slowly. "Thanks for listening."

"Hey, no problem," Kagura said, ruffling her hair roughly, "What're friends for, right? I might see ya later tomorrow, if you're not doing anything. Say, 'round eight?"

"Well… I'm probably going to go to work after all. I'm feeling a lot better."

"Until _eight?_ Jeez! Are you some kind of masochist?"

"At least _I _won't be in mortal peril."

"I've heard you can die from boredom." They eyed each other; this was a long-standing dispute, and it didn't look like it'd be resolved tonight, either. Whose job actually sucked more? In the end it's a value judgment and useless to argue about. "Right. Well, see ya."

"Yeah."

As Kagura walked down the dark street, hands thrust into her pockets and leaning into a light, chilly breeze. Something Yomi had said earlier was still troubling her. _"Chiyo looked awful, didn't she? So spent and tired."_

_"Yeah, I noticed."_

_"First Ayumu, then Chiyo and Tomo… have you noticed that whenever this stuff with the giant monsters directly involves us, it's always the most child-like of us that get hit the hardest?"_

"That hardly seems fair, does it?" Kagura said to the air. "Damn."

There were hardly any pedestrians out, but she was starting to feel a little anti-social and this was probably a good thing. As she rounded a corner, though, three men in suits (no jackets in this weather? Obviously Gaijin) whisked by her walking in the opposite direction. _Towards Yomi?_ She thought fleetingly, coming to a stop and looking after them. _No, they wouldn't dare. Not a diplomatic worker. And she'd have told me if she'd done anything._

She wondered vaguely what they were up to, but the ability to keep your head down is a virtue 'round these parts. Kagura continued on her way, quickly forgetting about them.

* * *

"I don't understand. Why do you need these people?" Masema asked, for once managing to get the drop on Yukia. She was sitting on the deck of her room, legs crossed and eyes closed. He would have thought that she was meditating, but the set of her shoulders struck him as oddly… predatory. He got the sense of great, dark wings folded in the air above her, a sinuous body…

"It's an astral web," she answered softly, tracing invisible lines in the air before her with both hands. "Bonds between people, stronger than any circumstance or bureaucracy can make. I can use these. The one that I need, Mihama, is the most important, but her close friends and theirs, a lover if she has one, parents if we can find them… they would help things along."

"I've been wanting to get my hands on a Mihama for a long time."

"Not this one. She won't be alive when I'm done with her. Sorry."

Masema shrugged. "Getting my war will be worth it. I can't pretend to understand what you're trying to do, but as long as the end of it is the end of the Earthmen, I'm with you."

"It'll be the end of more than just that," she assured, smiling beatifically without opening her eyes. "You'll get your money's worth."

* * *

The "scaly sandbar" that Chiyo had noticed on her flight in was in fact the mighty Manda, a 100-meter long sea-serpent of colossal strength and nasty temperament. As one of the few cities whose ports were open to foreigners, Shizouka rated two guardian monsters: Gigan on land and Manda beneath the waves. If a ship was found to be carrying contraband, it wasn't just brought in so its crew could be detained… it was DRAGGED into the DEPTHS by a SEA MONSTER!

There wasn't a lot of smuggling going on in Shizouka.

The Gaijin who lived and worked in the city felt especially safe, since there were not one but two monsters waiting to spring to their defense in the case of an American invasion. On this fateful day, however, it turned out that two were not nearly enough.

It all started when the sonar network noted that Manda was stirring, but couldn't see anything that he could be reacting to. Remembering some obscure stories that he'd heard from the Earthmen, the Gaijin SDF Commander called up his assistant and found out that yes, Earth did know of a menacing creature that was able to slip through sonar undetected…

The call went out, and a calm, orderly evacuation of the area immediately around the bay began, Black Hole People first, Earthmen second. This nonsense came to a quick stop, though, when an atomic beam roared out of the bay, carrying Manda hundreds of feet into the air. For a shining moment while the serpent hung above them, silhouetted in the beam's ferociously blue light, all of the evacuees were equal regardless of their homeworld. (Though the mad rush probably wasn't much of an improvement for anybody.)

Then Manda smashed down over a tract of warehouses, thrashing and writhing and making his distinctive "_hisssss-grunt!_" sound, crushing everything about him beneath his coils and raising billowing clouds of debris. This almost obscured the King of the Monsters as he emerged from the bay, but nothing could obscure his terrible roar.

This Godzilla looked older and, if not wiser, then a lot meaner. His dark hide was covered with rough white scars, including one that raked over the side of his face and swallowed his left eye. It's a lot easier to be King when there's no contenders, after all—but even though the years of "Earth overrun by monsters" had been hard on him, he'd held on.

A sinister red light grew in Gigan's visor and the cyborg monster came to life with an ear-splitting shriek, clashing its scythes together in a shower of sparks. Godzilla looked at him, unconcerned; he wasn't even bothered when the smaller monster took flight towards him and a buzzsaw in its torso blurred into motion.

Apparently, it meant to zoom low over Godzilla and gash him with his saw. This was a tactic that had given him victory over several larger monsters… but unfortunately, Godzilla knew how to duck. As his body went down, his great tail rose ponderously behind him and Gigan didn't have time to swerve before they collided thunderously and the cyborg was sent flipping wildly through the air.

Godzilla's dorsal fins lit as he turned casually and loosed another beam at his falling foe. Gigan's explosion was a matter of much debate and confusion—it was not in itself nuclear, but it was touched off by a beam from Godzilla, basically a living, breathing, pissed-off nuclear reactor. But if that fact didn't take it out of the running, then this was the largest non-nuclear, non-volcanic explosion ever recorded. Gigan chunks were skipping off of Mount Fuji in the distance.

Godzilla grunted in disappointment and started landward, ignoring Manda as the serpent slinked back into the water and swam for his life. The King of the Monsters strode imperiously, head high, confident that nothing in this world could stand against him… and probably right. The vengeance of the Earth had begun!


	10. Catastrophe

The colossal form of Space Godzilla hung over their heads, suspended in his crystal cocoon to heal after the humiliating drubbing the Moth Goddess had given him. The Supreme Commander of the Black Hole People stood beneath on a catwalk, waiting for his second to arrive.

Long ago, he had been tall and striking, with sharp, cruel eyes and a properly fierce mane of hair. He would have signaled his displeasure with Masema's methods by showing up in his office unannounced and dragging him over his desk. He'd made grown soldiers cry with a look and their officers cry with the subsequent beating.

But he had aged and mellowed, his mane becoming a commanding pate, his broad face covered with creases and lines, his eyes softening (though not necessarily warming), and his shoulders bent. So it was that instead of seeking out and pummeling his second, the Commander waited to meet him on neutral ground.

"Supreme Commander," Masema greeted with the bare minimum of respect.

"Lord Captain Commander," he returned with less. "I disapprove of your methods."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"What's this about ordering the arrest of that florist? And then you mobilized your secret agents immediately after. I can only assume the Gray Charities spirited him away and you decided to get the rest of your targets more covertly."

"Is this a problem?" Masema asked sharply.

"It won't be if you can explain why you've resorted to kidnapping."

"It was an urgent matter of security. I did not have time to…"

"Masema! Stop and look around."

"What?"

"Stop. And. Look. Around."

Masema rolled his eyes and cast a disinterested look around the vast chamber; it was a dizzying landscape of jagged blue crystal, thrusting up around them at all manner of crazy angles and fusing into the great bulb that held the curled monster above them. If not for the catwalk and its reassuringly mundane form, they would have been hopelessly lost. "Okay, what was that for?"

"It is a skill that I have developed since becoming Supreme Commander. To lead properly, you must be able to quiet yourself and observe. Masema, you have risen to your current lofty rank by being ruthless and ambitious; there is nothing wrong with this. Now that you are here, though, I am troubled. A leader must know how to stop and _think_… but when given the time, all that you do is brood. Your eyes and ears close so that your mind can chase itself in circles in the darkness."

"Is that so?"

"Surely you have noticed? The Earthmen are not the inferior beings that we had imagined. I know how you feel about them, and I know that you will never allow your feelings to change. Therefore, I have to worry when you start acting without informing me."

"Is _this_ what you called me for? In case you haven't noticed, we have a giant monster that…"

"What are you planning, Masema? I command you to tell me."

"I refuse."

"I am still the Supreme Commander."

"Yeah… about that," Masema said, casually drawing his sidearm and shooting his superior through the skull. "I've been meaning to do something about that."

The former Supreme Commander slumped to the deck, living just long enough to give him a profoundly unsurprised look. There were a few seconds while Masema simply stood there, shocked and attempting to grasp what it was he'd just done.

Of course the blathering old fool's bodyguard came running. "Lord Captain Commander!" he cried, "Who did this?"

"Why, you did!" Masema answered.

"I—what?" The guard crumpled around a laser wound in his gut.

Masema looked back and forth between them, a crazed smile slowly growing on his face. After a few seconds, a high pitched giggle finally escaped his twisted lips… and then he dropped to his knees and started pounding the catwalk for glee, shaking the crystalline walls with his braying laugh. This would have looked very suspicious to anybody that happened by, but this didn't bother the new Supreme Commander.

* * *

Kazuki was trying his hardest to concentrate on the task at hand, but he was having an even harder time of it than usual. He and Osamu had been contracted to draw a few pictures of samurai killing each other to be used as the covers for a series of novels. At the moment, he was hovering over the depiction of a wounded man in broken armor left for dead at the feet of a menacing black statue.

"Blood, blood, blood," he muttered to himself, "It doesn't look right."

He'd quested for a good way to draw blood ever since High School; black blood was well and good for manga, shiny blood was nice for decorative art, most pictures would let you get away with a nameless red gloop… but what did you do when you were taking it seriously? He had never found a method that matched the horrible reality of spattered blood. Kazuki had tried every medium at his disposal except…

Hm, _what_ was that Ayumu said?

With a deep breath, Kazuki put his arm over the page and took his ultra-fine technical pencil in hand. Its needle-like point quivered as he raised it on high. _Okay… one… two…_

"I'm back," Sanada called, pushing his way through the apartment's door with a grocery bag in each arm. "Can you help me out with this?"

"Sure! For sure!" the artist leapt to his feet. "Thanks for showing up when you did. I'm not sure what I was gonna do for a minute, there."

"Uh…" Sanada blinked. "Sure. No problem."

"And just outta curiosity," Kazuki added as they started back towards the car, "How does a trip to Okinawa sound?"

"Huh? When?"

"I dunno, like right now."

"Wh- _now?_"

"Yeah! Got relatives to see, food to scarf, a statue to find…"

"The monster one?"

"…and I hear the fishing's real good these days…"

"But… hold on, is that why you want to-?"

"Fish-? 'Course not! Sata Andagi, man! Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had good Sata Andagi?"

* * *

Yomi found herself staring at the ceiling, unwilling to move a muscle. What a hell of a day. What a hell of a year. What a hell of a _life_. Talking to Kagura had made her feel much better, but then the athlete had adapted to this bizarre and awful world while Yomi had only hit all of the physical prerequisites. Peace just refused to come.

Occasionally, on some dark and sleepless night, she'd think back to their last visit to Magical Land, the six of them bound together and plunging bravely ahead. It seemed that they were immortal, mystical, unstoppable; that nothing would ever separate them. But then Chiyo had gone disappeared over the Pacific and the rest of them had spread throughout Japan to find their places. Then the world became a nightmare of giant monsters and Tomo had… had…

"Little jerk," Yomi whispered. "Has to ruin everything…"

How could she stand tall and be the great, strong, mature Yomi everybody was expecting when she just wanted to go back to Magical Land? No, no, no, that attitude wouldn't do at all. She had to be… well, not _happy_ necessarily, but _hopeful_ at least. Nowhere for things to go but up, right?

The doorbell rang.

Yomi knocked on the wooden coffee table before rising and adjusting herself. Whoever this guest was, they would receive no hint of her distress. When she was satisfied that she looked reasonable for the hour (and the ringer started to get impatient), she padded over and opened the door.

_Pthut!_ A ball coated with some kind of adhesive slapped heavily into the inside of her shoulder and clung there, trailing a long conducting wire. "You've _got_ to be kidding!" she moaned, wondering why she ended up saying that every time she answered the door.

"Okay," a suited Gaijin said, holding his weapon up for her to see. "Either you come with me or it's 20,000 volts."

"Aah… Kazuki hasn't changed a bit, the bubblehead," Ayumu sighed happily, stretching out on one of the chairs set throughout the store for people who wanted to read or just take a load off. Her eyes roved over the light shelving, passing dismissively by most of the paperbacks. As with all but the most grievously stupid of occult booksellers, Kaori and Xandra didn't sell much in the way of books that could actually do much damage. All of the "real" occult materials were along the outside wall, not for sale.

"Heh! Look who's talking," Xandra poked her.

"Look who's talking squared!" the Earth girl shot back.

"Hey, I've got it together," Xandra protested. "In fact, I've got it so together, I don't think I've forgotten anything important in the last two months!"

"How would ya know if you forgot something?" Ayumu asked.

"I, uh…" Xandra trailed off, looking troubled. "Shoot, now I can't think of anything I'm supposed to remember."

"Uh-oh…"

"You're evil!" Xandra slapped the back of her sister's head. "Evil, evil woman! You and your Komodo Dragons!"

"You had fun lookin' for 'em!" Ayumu defended, giggling.

Kaori swept past them, instantly commanding their complete attention. This was partially an effect of her kimono, but mostly grew from her own stature and grace. "What can I do for you gentlemen?" she asked, voice low and smooth.

Three men had entered while the sisters were talking, but they didn't look much like customers. They were Gaijin agents in their Men in Black getups, standing in a rough V near the entrance and apparently doing their best to look intimidating. "Er, yes," the leader said, clearly not expecting to be addressed calmly. "We're, uh, looking for two people who stay here. A Ms. Ayumu Kasuga?"

Ayumu opened her mouth but Xandra clapped a hand over it and dragged her behind a row of shelves. "Keep it shut," she hissed, "We're not at home."

"Ayumu Kasuga?" Kaori closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry, I don't think I know anybody by that name."

"You forged a release to get her out of the State Asylum."

"Anybody can forge my name. And why would I do something like that? I lost my certification years ago, and I've never met the woman in any case."

"You went to High School with her."

"Is that so?"

"Well?" The leader removed his sunglasses, banking on his frightening alien eyes to scare her into submission. It had absolutely no effect, though, and they stared at each other implacably for quite some time. In fact, if anything, the alien seemed to become uneasy as their standoff wore on.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," Kaori said slowly, and there was a mighty force behind her words in spite of their mild tone. "I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I have a better idea," the lead Gaijin said, and shot her with his taser.

Kaori glanced down at the ball sticking to her chest and moved to pull it off. "Come, now, you wouldn't dare- AH!" She jerked back from him and grabbed a shelf for balance but to her credit, she remained completely calm. "You should know that assaulting me right now would probably get you court marshaled."

"Well, we just got a new Supreme Commander, and his policies are a little different."

"Oh, beans," Kaori cursed softly, then gasped in pain as the charge threw her to the ground and bore down on her mercilessly. She fought her hardest not to scream, only letting a gravelly sort of whine out, but her twisting and jerking showed what pain she was in.

"Stop it!" Ayumu cried, shoving Xandra away and jumping out. "I'm here! Here I am!"

But then she yipped in pain as another taser ball slapped into her side, cringed in anticipation… and blinked when the conducting line mysteriously snapped. Rather than waste any time on surprise, the agent closed swiftly on Ayumu as she wavered between fleeing and going to Kaori's side.

"Run, you stupid little…!" Kaori gritted before another shock floored her again.

"But, but you…!" Ayumu stammered as the agent grabbed her arm. There was a flicker of pinkish light and tiny cut appeared across his cheek, but he only swatted at the air in vague annoyance. Whispering angrily, the blade continued its work, scoring his forearm back and forth. Ayumu knew instantly what was happening, and that it was an extremely bad idea. If Yukia were to find out about her son… "Stay back!" she implored.

Of course, her abductor thought that she was talking to him, and pressed the weapon's contact pads to her arm. "Shut up!" he gritted, "Not one more word!"

"O-okay," Ayumu replied, then gasped at the brief shock. "Hey! That wasn't- _ow!_"

"You're not too quick on the uptake, are you?"

"I- _ow! _Sorry! _Ow!_"

Xandra started to edge away, when she heard the dreaded _pthut!_ and felt the third agent's taser strike her back. "_No!_" she cried in a panic. "No! Okay! I'll come, I'll come!" In the weeks to come, she'd lament her pusillanimity, but what else was there to do? For his part, the third was secretly relieved. "Do we need the proprietress?" he asked.

"No," the leader said, "Just these other two."

"And don't follow us," the second growled at Kaori, trying to staunch the cuts on his arm and restrain Ayumu at the same time. The five set out, leaving her on the floor and quite a ways from being able to get up again. After a few seconds, the dragon fluttered down and nipped at her ear.

"Where the hell… were you?" she grumbled dazedly, breath labored. "So much for… all that positive chi… I was storing up. Gotta… get a new… consultant."

"So where are we going?" Ayumu asked. "_Ow!_ Oh, right, I keep forgettin' I'm not supposed to- _Owow!_ Sorry! _Ow!_"

It was a long trip.

* * *

"Chiyo Mihama," Yukia said contemplatively. "I never would have imagined."

She sat lotus-style in the middle of her dark, bare room, practicing her forbidden secret art. The spell circle had been drawn on to her floor but then scrubbed out; once it was in place, the physical presence of the paint had ceased to matter. If anybody were to watch her, they would have seen strange, ethereal shapes flickering in the air about her… shortly before they died.

The one reason Masema hadn't killed her yet was that she'd claimed to have found a scientific way to contact the creatures that served her. Pah! As if science could ever hope to fathom those mighty, insidious beings that twist the world about us! Scientists could carry their search all the way down to the Planck Length, all the way back to the Big Bang, out to the edge of the Universe or into the depths of a singularity and they still would know nothing of the true world!

The boundaries of the world are much stranger, more complex and mobile than the laws of science and common sense could ever encompass. The mightiest of immortal beings could be a simple fishmonger. An uninteresting young man you bump into on the street could be a god. Heck, he could be a _goddess_. He might not even know it! Or in this case, a pathetic, cringing girl could turn out to have more life and power in her than all of Tokyo.

"You probably haven't had enough rest since last I drew from you," Yukia mused, "But it really doesn't matter, now does it? You're not long for this world anyway, and soon enough I'll need all the strength that I can get. I suppose might as well finish you now."

She clutched the air before her, tensing her whole body, and roiling shadow rose from her shoulders. The room darkened and congealed, suddenly writhing with a hideous, demonic form. She exhaled slowly as nonexistent wings pounded the air about her and an inaudible tri-toned shriek rattled her bones. This was a being did not live, but once it had… and soon it would again.

"Mihama…" Yukia licked her lips. "Mothra couldn't stop us, the Xians couldn't stop us and neither can you. You were born ignorant of who you are and you will die ignorant as well!" She stood slowly as the demon lifted away, unaware of the cliché of her last cry: "_Your soul is mine!_"

* * *

_Of all the ridiculous things. _Sakaki sighed, the ghost of a smirk wisping about her stately lips. She was stretched out on her easy chair, feet bared, while Chiyo lay over her legs and painted her toenails blue. The young prodigy was in a much more cheerful mood, past the quiet, uncertain stage where she wasn't sure if Sakaki wasn't still mad at her or not.

"This is what my roommate and I would do to make up whenever we had a fight," Chiyo explained. "She called it…" an obscure phrase in English. _Girlinatu?_

"I'm sorry?" Fights with her roommate… and she said it as if this were a frequent occurrence. _That_ didn't sound much like Chiyo at all.

"Basically, we'd get together and act super girly. Paint fingernails, gossip about boys, pillow fights… all that sort of stuff that we weren't supposed to have time because we were busy Dean's List college students. It was very cathartic."

"But…" Sakaki understood completely, but she couldn't stop herself from asking, "Why do my toenails have to be blue?"

"Nobody will see anyway," Chiyo said, continuing to paint. "So it won't be unprofessional, will it? I mean, won't it be a little fun? Nobody will know but you… like having a tattoo or something."

"Hm…"

"By the way, I really like your feet. They're so big, but… graceful."

"Um… thanks," Sakaki replied, color creeping into her cheeks. She was never really good at taking compliments except by ignoring them. Especially when they concerned her body and _especially_ when they involved size. At least she wasn't bringing up—Sakaki choked off the thought, blushing a little more.

"Nothing like mine," Chiyo added sourly, kicking the air. "They're just so clunky and awkward. Look like they were slapped on after the fact… like on those stick-figures with balls for feet." And in point of fact, Sakaki could sort of see what she meant, though she didn't lie by saying, "I think they're fine."

"Of course you would…" Chiyo laughed softly. "Listen to me. I sound like your typical angsty teen. Huh, thought I left that behind."

"You didn't get a chance," Sakaki pointed out.

"Of course I… oh, you mean I never got the chance to get all worked up and be a drama queen about ultimately irrelevant things? Hm, maybe I should try it sometime."

"…er, yeah." Was she joking? This was really the first time just the two of them had relaxed together (unless you counted last night following that lightning attack), and she was starting to realize that maybe she didn't know the new Chiyo that well after all. Sakaki consoled herself with the knowledge that she was still the same person underneath.

Or was she? (Two Chiyos? Where the heck did _that_ thought come from?)

"There," Chiyo clicked the bottle of nail-polish shut. "Don't you feel pretty?"

Sakaki shrugged helplessly. "Sure."

"C'mon, you should…" Chiyo sat on the arm of the chair and looped her arm behind it. "And not just because of the polish… though I have to say it's a nice touch."

"Uh…" The older girl looked away, a trifle uncomfortable.

"Oh, I'm sorry…" Chiyo straightened. It occurred to her that the "Kaori thing" back in High School might make Sakaki oversensitive to certain behavior. (Oddly, it seemed more significant to her than any of the Giant Monster-induced brushes with death she'd endured.) And maybe she should've thought of this before falling asleep on her last night? Hmm… "Was I intruding on your personal space?"

"It's fine."

Sure didn't sound like it. Chiyo stepped down from the chair, uncertain again. "Good. Um, is it okay if I get a can of soda?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Do you want something while I'm up?"

"No, thanks." Sakaki looked down at her toes and wiggled them a little as Chiyo went into the next room. She wondered momentarily what Jumbo would think… he'd probably say they were cute. It was almost irritating how warm and happy that thought made her feel.

So, soon Jumbo would face the dreaded "best friend's approval" test, though both girls knew that Sakaki would do as she pleased regardless of the verdict… still, it would make him nervous. Was this strictly a bad thing? The poor guy was nervous enough on his own, but all the same… Oh, relationships were so confusing.

Then Sakaki heard a heavy thump on linoleum and instantly, deep in her gut, knew that something was very, _very _wrong. She jerked to her feet and looked back towards the kitchen door just in time to see something faint and dark lash the air before her. A tail? But it wasn't really there, was it? Somehow knowing what she'd find, Sakaki rushed into the oddly darkened kitchen and knelt at Chiyo's side where she'd fallen.

"Chiyo-chan!" Sakaki called frantically, gently shaking her.

"S'okay…" she mumbled. "Just feel a little weak… happens sometimes."

"But what…?" The older woman was cut off by an unnatural puff of wind. Something rushed past her and Chiyo shuddered with a soft little cry of pain. "What _is _this?" Another shape lashed by on her other side, and Sakaki could have sworn that she saw tiny glimmering eyes on it. With a feeling a thousand times worse than finding spiders crawling all over her, she realized that she was crouching _inside_ of some kind of creature.

Sakaki wasted no time; she moved to gather Chiyo up into her arms, but the scuff of a shoe on the floor whirled her about just in time for a taser to strike her chest and go off. Nearly unconscious, gasping for breath and biting back tears, she watched two Gaijin enter and look around. They were obviously unable to see the monstrous creature that was… was… _eating _Chiyo.

"What's wrong with her? Some kind of seizure?" one asked.

"Never mind," the other said, starting forward and withdrawing a syringe. "Let's knock the girl out and… uh…" At this point, he happened to notice Sakaki rising and grabbing something on the edge of his vision. Her eyes were like coals, and two of his teeth were skipping off of the wall before he even thought to do anything. For a few seconds after, he couldn't figure out why the floor had hit him in the face.

Sakaki stepped between the other and Chiyo, holding her implement ready. Unfortunately, the other agent still had his taser. As she fell, Sakaki saw the half-existing wings of whatever-it-was beating above her and felt such a surge of anger as she had never known.

_Monster! How _dare_ you hurt Chi-?_

_THUD._


	11. Cruelty and Cameos

"Oh, man… this _sucks_," Ohyama moaned, hobbling over the wreckage of his garage on a crutch. It was at the edge of the wide swath of destruction Godzilla had left just by strolling through Shizouka; one wall had been carved out by the very tip of his tail in one of its casual sweeps and the whole structure had crumbled. Meanwhile, their hated rival down the street was completely untouched. Figures.

"Dude, I'm really sorry about this…" Kagura patted his shoulder consolingly. "Your insurance will cover it, right?"

"Yeah…" he sighed. "Damn, though!"

Kagura walked out past the garage and looked down along Godzilla's path. She'd been far too busy to just stand there and take it all in until just an hour ago, when Enryu had been deactivated and its members told to beat it because the "real" rescue workers were moving in. Of course, they wouldn't have much work to do—there had been miraculously few injuries and, at least to her knowledge, nobody had actually been killed. (Naturally, Ohyama had been one of the unlucky few, and the splint Kagura had given him was holding up admirably.) All in all, this was the shortest call she'd ever responded to for Enryu.

The brute's course through Shizouka hadn't been completely straight, but she could almost see the suburbs at the end of a corridor paved with grit and rubble, lined on either side by teetering and broken buildings. The swath was almost flat, except for the monster's enormous footprints and occasional deeper fissures where he'd plunged through into a subway or smashed a water main.

"Do you have to go to a debriefing or anything?" Ohyama asked behind her.

"Huh?" She shook her head. Even with her experience in disaster areas, the monster's wake was still mesmerizing. "No, they just turned us loose."

"Want to get lunch, then? I'll treat."

"But what about…?" she started, gesturing at the carnage of his garage.

"Like you said, my insurance will cover it. I need to forget about this for a while."

Kagura shrugged. "In that case, sure."

"Great, I parked around the corn…" Ohyama trailed off upon hearing the most disgusting _squish-squish-squish _sound in the universe. When an unbearable fishy stench hit them, they turned together to observe a trio of colossal _squid_ (of all things) schlepping their way down Godzilla's path, walking ridiculously on their longest tentacles and leaving a trail of glistening slime on the pavement. "Wha… wha… what the hell?"

"Yog," Kagura coughed out, waving at the air in front of her face. "Stupid… _cough!_ space amoeba thingies… _cough, cough! _let's get out of here."

"Right, good idea," Ohyama started away, but came up short when another of the Yog-infested squid squished by in that direction. "Gahh! What are they doing?"

Kagura pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth. "Probably going to fight Godzilla. _Cough!_ He'll burn 'em down fast as they come, though." She grabbed his sleeve and started off again as the fishy monstrosity continued past them. "God, that smell! I didn't think about stuff like this when I signed on…"

"Why _did_ you join Enryu, anyway?" Ohyama hesitated until the odor faded and it became apparent no more marching cephalopods were on their way. Casting a dirty glance after them, he withdrew his keychain and hit the 'unlock' button… but the reassuring _chirp-chirp!_ failed to reach his ears. Oh, no.

"Well, I was originally shooting to be a professional athlete, but… well, what with all the national disasters every other week, it seemed kinda selfish. And right near the end of High School, I was sorta inspired by this paramedic from G-Force, a Rei…" Kagura's voice died as she stared in mute horror along with her friend.

Ohyama's sporty little Toyota Supra had been crushed into a twisted bowl of reeking slime. "For the love of…!" he growled, clutching his forehead. "And do you suppose my auto insurance covers 'stepped on by giant squid'?"

* * *

Like every other space owned by the Black Hole People, their control room was uncomfortably dark by Earthman standards. All of the screens were hooded to keep their light from reaching out, and the great screen table that Masema and his lieutenants were gathered around glowed only dimly. Its map of Japan was covered in blue lights to signify their various assets, and currently there was just one big, angry red blot marching around Mt. Fuji towards Tokyo. ("Where is he going?" Masema had asked. "Where does he _always_ go?" an advisor had replied. He wasn't sure if this insolence was execution-worthy or not.)

"We captured five of the seven targets, Supreme Commander. The florist has disappeared and the woman with Enryu was on call," the head of Masema's intelligence team reported. "Yukia has seen to the disposition of the prisoners; if I may, she stuck them in some rather… ah, _unorthodox_ places."

"Are they a security risk?" Masema asked impatiently.

"No, sir. She said that she was putting them where the astral lines were strongest. Do you know what she meant by that, sir?"

"It's not important. She knows more about that stuff than we do, and I'm too busy to worry about a bunch of safely-locked-up twenty-somethings, wherever Yukia put them. Or did you forget about the giant monster that we're dealing with too?"

"Um…"

Masema clopped him across the side of his head, knocking him out of the circle. "Damn it! Everybody keeps forgetting about the giant monster! What's so important about astral lines or these stupid girls? We're under attack!" As he spoke, the four lights representing Yog-infested giant squid winked out almost as one. "I'm tired of wasting the Yogs. Is our little ambush ready?"

"Yes, Supreme Commander," another subordinate said, pointing out three brighter blue motes spaced out around their foe. "They're ready when you give the word."

The thicker woods ahead of the Godzilla seemed to ripple; it was the mottled hide of the sleek Kemular, a quick and agile beast similar in build to a tyrannosaurus. Trailing high over the treetops at the end of his tail was a bony stinger that would be the attacker's trump card. Its wicked point dripped transparent, greenish fluid that instantly killed the foliage wherever it fell.

Up on the face of Mount Fuji, another monster raised an enormous boulder over his head. This was the brutal Red King, a muscular saurian with a rough red hide and a ridiculously tiny head. Apart from being fantastically strong, he was a deadshot when it came to chucking heavy objects, as his target would soon find.

A hole opened in the ground behind him and a wedge-shaped head with curved horns emerged for just a moment. With a dismissive grunt accompanied by a belch of flame from his snout, the insidious Gomora plunged back into the ground and started tunneling towards the Earth monster's feet.

Masema smiled. "Hit it."

* * *

Yomi's eyelids drifted open gummily, fluttering with the massive headache that rested like a rock behind them. Whatever drug they'd used on her left her aching all over, but the pain was most pronounced in her wrists, which were bound to the walls on either side of her. _Ugh… makeshift bindings, _she groaned inwardly, testing them. _They have state-of-the-art cells, force-field walls and magnetic bindings. What's with the medieval dungeon routine?_

She slowly raised her head and took in her surroundings. The space was obnoxiously dark, as expected, but surprisingly large. It seemed that she'd been tied to the wall of a curving corridor, surrounded by a cold, musty smell and oppressive shadow. At first she thought that the walls were ribbed, but as her eyes adapted she saw that they were really rows of large tubes.

_What kind of place is this? s_he wondered. _And why did they put me here?_

Yomi waited for a time, standing and sitting alternately so that she wouldn't get stiff. She tried to think of why she could have been kidnapped, but the only two reasons she could come up with were both pretty stupid. It was either because of her connection to Chiyo (which, as far as the Black Hole People could tell, would probably be pretty tenuous) or because of her position as a minor diplomat. Of course, if that were the case, they must be getting pretty desperate to resort to _her_.

After that, though, her keen mind pretty much went to waste. Perhaps that was the reason for the strange setting… maybe they were just trying to make her uneasy. But the more she thought about it, the more that seemed wrong. There was something behind this… then it hit her.

The tubes. This was where they kept the collateral prisoners! Yomi's calm was instantly shattered as her eyes shot frantically from tube to tube, but of course her eyes couldn't pierce their misty interiors, of course she couldn't find the one that—and a spike of ice thrust through her spine. No…!

Yomi tried to turn, but her arms were held out too far. The bindings wouldn't let her turn around and see the tube she was actually _tied to_. It couldn't be. It _couldn't be._ "Yomi, get a hold of yourself… they're just screwing with you… they know you lost a friend in the riots and they… they just want you to stew in the uncertainty… of… _shit!_"

She twisted fiercely, nearly wrenching her arms, but she could only get the tube behind her into her peripheral vision. She saw a dim shape floating within it, but it was impossible to make out. Was her mind playing tricks on her, or was it the right size to be…? She tried the other side but only succeeded in nearly injuring herself; back and forth she struggled, hissing and growling curses.

Finally, she sagged with a sound that was very nearly a sob. Her captors had found the one thing in all this bleak and frightening world that could shake the composure of Yomi Mizuhara.

* * *

Ayumu had an even harder time awakening, though she was on a reasonably comfortable pallet. All she saw at first was a bland gray wall and a few tears that had fallen on her paper-width pillow. To these she gave no notice; tears on her pillow were hardly a new development, after all. Even in a drugged sleep, it had just been the same nightmares as always. _You'd think I'd get used to 'em by now! Don't ya eventually get nightmare antibodies or somethin'?_

She sat up, blinking drowsily and taking in the Spartan cell in her classic unhurried way. For an instant, something indistinct fluttered about her eyes and she smiled as Gathra's feather weight nestled in her hair, making her feel a little warmer and lighter. "Hey, there!" she whispered.

Xandra was in a pallet across the cell from her, still sleeping fitfully. She murmured incoherently, tossing and turning. In fact, now that Ayumu looked more closely, she saw that the alien girl wasn't breathing properly; tremors shot through her chest every time she tried to draw a breath, which would often emerge as a thick, shuddering cough. Was it some kind of disease?

"Oh, no! Xannie! Are ya comin' down with Consumption?" Ayumu sure hoped not; all she knew about Consumption was that it made you cough up blood and die. It was in a lot of old novels; whenever a character became inconvenient to the plot, they'd just get Consumption and die. It was kind of a funny trend, or would be if her sister wasn't…

But now she noticed something else: past the cell's force-wall in the narrow corridor, she saw a slight movement near the floor. There must have been some kind of air current out there, because tiny grains of white powder were rolling slowly across the deck in a thin layer, like the beach starting its invasion when they left the doors of Chiyo's summer home open for too long.

Ayumu sniffed the air and very distantly caught the nauseating smell of Moth. She would never learn why it was on the Gaijin Mothership, but it turns out that Masema had been the one to think of refining the mysterious Gathra powder and distributing it as a drug. This was one of the many ways he worked to keep the Earthmen down… and if he wasn't such a brooder, he might have paused to wonder why he had to work so hard at it if they were actually so inferior.

"But… but I'm not freakin' out. Why…?" Gathra fluttered his wings impatiently. "Oh, right. Thanks." Ayumu crossed the room unsteadily sat on the floor next to her sister. She rested a hand on Xandra's shoulder, and sure enough, her breathing evened out as Gathra's protection settled over her.

Looking over at her sleeping sister, Ayumu tried to swallow a sudden rise of simmering anger. Who had been cruel enough to put them here? If not for her son, would they even have survived? If she'd slept even a little bit longer, would she have awakened to find Xandra suffocated, dead of Consumption?

Under the aegis of the former Guardian, they rested and waited.

* * *

Sakaki sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She felt ill inside, and not from the drug. In spite of the fact that he'd been out to get them, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy whose teeth she'd knocked out with a… hm, now that she thought back, she couldn't remember what she'd been wielding. And where was Chiyo-chan?

Self-disgust was suddenly overcome by worry. She was alone in her cell and the other pallet was mussed but empty, so she could only assume that Chiyo had been brought in with her and taken away… and given how they'd been abducted, this was probably a _very_ bad thing.

What if it was the person that Chiyo had encountered the night before? Sakaki stood restlessly. What were they doing to her? What were the rest of them there for? Would they be… killed?

"Ms. Sakaki?" a male voice called softly. "I thought it was you."

Sakaki crossed to the aisle and saw a tall Xian in the cell across from her, resting a forearm against his own force-wall. He had a long, narrow face that had probably once been sharp, as well as a fall of snowy hair nearly as long as hers. His clothes were well-worn but clean; he'd clearly been a prisoner for quite some time, but not too badly treated. She looked at him questioningly.

"Don't you recognize me?"

"No."

"Not a surprise, I suppose. Still, I'm sure I left quite an impression on you when we met. Not the one I'd been hoping for, but…"

She blinked at him, then her eyes widened. "Prince?" So this was the once-great Prince Xolarus. She wasn't sure how to react to him--after all, he'd lead the first invasion of Earth, attacked Japan with King Ghidora and tried to have her kidnapped to be his bride. But then, he was just a product of his society and an alright fellow for all that. He certainly wasn't in a position to cause any mayhem _now_.

"Heh. It's King now, not that that matters." Xolarus smiled wanly. "What do they have you in for? Not many prisoners are brought up to this ship."

"Ship?"

"Yeah, we're in their mothership over Tokyo."

"Mm."

"You look like you don't know what you're in trouble for," he said sympathetically. "Lord knows I've seen that look enough in my father's court. You also look… you know, if the drug they gave you is making you sick, you can ask the guard for a pill to ease it."

She shook her head. "Thanks."

"Who was that girl they brought you in with?"

"You saw Chiyo?" Sakaki's voice rose. "Where did they take her?"

He shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. It's not like I can ask for a day-pass so I can go see… wait, that was _Chiyo?_"

"Yes."

"Your little friend that we pulled out of the rubble? Great space! What happened to her?"

"Genes on her mother's side," Sakaki brushed it aside. "I have to know where she is!"

"You could try asking the guard, but he won't tell you anything." Xolarus sat down behind the lip of the force-wall so she could only see his legs. "Their Supreme Commander doesn't go in for executions or torture, though, so you know. As long as that Second-in-Command of theirs doesn't get his hands on her, they're probably not doing anything awful to her."

Sakaki couldn't find the words within her to tell him that _probably_ wasn't nearly good enough. "…oh."

"You might as well try to relax. Whatever they want from you, you'll find out soon enough. Unless you're some kind of resistance fighter, they might even give you legal counsel."

Sakaki raised an eyebrow. She was getting the impression that he didn't understand the circumstances of her capture, but really had no desire to explain it to him. Rather than give him a chance to start asking questions, she made an effort to deflect him. "Why are you here?"

"Ah, they kicked our asses, too. Conquered Planet X, stole Space Godzilla from my father, took Ghidora's corpse, dissolved our military… man, I still can't believe what an operation they have here. Thinking back, my attempt at planetary conquest was pretty lame. These guys know how to do it _right_."

Sakaki sat down without responding.

"Hey, you don't have to like it to admire it, right? Right?" Xolarus paused, then realized he'd totally said the wrong thing. "But… Ms. Sakaki? I'm sure your friend is fine."

* * *

What Chiyo did couldn't rightly be called awakening, since her body still lay comatose on the deck at Yukia's feet, but she _did_ slowly become aware. Unfortunately, all there was for her to become aware of was an endless, featureless field of white. She stood up, finding that her own form was flickering and uncertain, mostly transparent. "Where am I?"

"Nowhere," a voice replied. She didn't recognize it at first, but a familiar irritated headache throbbed to life behind her right eye at the sound of it and reminded her. She turned, remembering that there wouldn't be a point to it. "Mr. Doesn't-Exist-Not-Even-In-My-Head?"

"How's it goin', luv?"

"What's… what's happening to me?" Chiyo choked when she completed her turn and actually _saw_ him. He had been right when he said he was nothing special to look at; an average looking chap in a white suit and hat, with a trimmed beard and slightly longer than average hair. But the very fact that he was there to see… "Wh-how is it that I'm looking at you?"

"It's because you're on your way here," he explained sadly.

"Wh-what?"

"It won't be long before you don't exist either."

* * *

The ambush did not go as planned.

The first five seconds or so were absolutely brilliant, but after that everything went downhill pretty quickly. Predictably, the one-eyed King of the Monsters had plodded stolidly ahead, disdainful of the ominous rumbling and shifting beneath his massive feet. When he reached the arranged point, the ground gave out and he fell sideways with a sharp grunt.

Red King's boulder skipped off the back of his head, throwing him forward onto his chest just as the final attacker closed in. With a gravelly howl, Kemular sent that wicked, venomous stinger lashing down towards one of Godzilla's scars… and it jabbed uselessly into his impervious hide, stuck fast. This is about when things turned around.

Godzilla twisted violently, breaking the stinger off with a piercing _crack! _Kemular stumbled back for just an instant before Godzilla's prodigious tail knocked him sprawling, spraying his foul venom all over. Next, Godzilla regained his feet and turned calmly to spew an atomic ray skyward, blasting Red King's second boulder from the sky and then scything the beam downward to kill the Red King himself.

Kemular struggled to rise and continue the fight, but another blue ray tore through his body and put a stop to _that_. You have to give this to Gomora, he was brave; a jet of flame rushed out of the hole at Godzilla's feet and washed over him harmlessly. He responded by drawing a deep breath and sending a third and yet more cataclysmic atomic blast right back, pouring an endless tide of radioactive fire into the tunnels until they'd been seared into glass. Gomora's remains were never found--they'd been reduced to less than ash.

Godzilla shook his head and continued on his way. This victory meant nothing to him.

"Damn it…!" Masema growled, beating his fists on the control room table. "What can we do to stop him? Yukia! Your plan had better be worth it!"

"Hmm?" Yukia looked up from drawing a circle around Chiyo where she sprawled on the deck. If anybody had any questions about this strange operation, they were too smart to ask. "Oh. Yes, this will be more than worth it. And you have to admit that that was not a bad shot for a creature with no depth perception."

"Guess so…" Masema folded his arms and turned back to the table. "Prepare to release Space Godzilla. That monster must to be stopped!"

Yukia sat down next to her prisoner and drew a deep breath. She'd never been stronger or more alive than at this very moment. She could feel the silvery astral lines reaching out from Chiyo to her friends below, as well as the web between each of them, strengthening and sharpening as they worried for and yearned after one another. Between them, she would have all that she would need.

The invisible demon crouched above her, occasionally bending down to nibble at Chiyo again, but there really wasn't much of the girl left. Yukia had been diabolically gleeful about the whole venture before, but now that her victim was actually _here_… she ran the back of her finger over Chiyo's cheek, feeling something that could possibly have been a distant cousin to affection. "You made this all possible," she whispered. "It must be frightening, but I promise that you will not be alone. You are only the first. Then it will be your friends. And then… _everyone_."


	12. Space Vampire

_Goddammit, why can't I just retire right now? _Yukari wondered despondently, leaning on her desk and struggling through a hangover to remain awake. _What do all these brats need to learn English for anyway? _She should really stop going on those late-night drinking sprees with Nyamo; getting drunk always brought on such bouts of existential angst. _That damn woman's corrupting me! I should ditch her and find a man who…_

"Um… sensei? I'm done. May I sit down?" Young Ozaki had been reciting to the class and now stood awkwardly next to her desk, waiting to be released. Some dim teacherly instinct in the depths of Yukari's soul reminded her to congratulate him on a job well done, but her head hurt too much to bother.

"Sure, whatever." Yukari waved vaguely at the classroom. "Next!"

"She sure seems a lot less chipper today," a girl in the back commented softly.

"Probably hung over again," another replied cynically.

Yukari slammed her hand down on the desk and stood, wincing at the pitch of her own voice. "All right, who said that?"

"Uh…" The two students looked around frantically then pointed at each other. "She-!"

"Your attention, please," the PA said nasally. Ever since their old principal had retired, this new guy had come… he was a real jerk and a stickler for punctuality, which were pretty much the same thing in Yukari's book. However, what he had to say just now was music to her ears. "Please come down to the parking lot to, er, collect your paychecks." A nervous cough. "And bring your students."

"All right!" Yukari chirped. "That's more like it! But I wonder why I have to bring you guys…?"

"Er, Ms. Yukari?" Michiko Kimura (yes, _that_ Kimura) ventured diffidently. She was a straight-A student who breezed through any academic challenge without any apparent effort. "I think it might be a code phrase."

_Lousy little know-it-all brat,_ Yukari thought without any real venom._ She's just like that one kid with the orange hair!_ "Code phrase, eh?" She espied her best friend from the corner of her eye, passing her room with a bewildered class in tow. "Yo, Nyamo! What's the code-phrase for?"

Kurosawa cast her an aggrieved glance. Clearly it was something she was supposed to already know. The gym teacher crossed to her quickly and whispered in her ear for a few seconds, slowly rising in volume until the front row of students could very clearly hear "—Godzilla, you idiot!" at the end.

"Oh, okay," Yukari said calmly. "I can take it from here." Kurosawa looked like she very much doubted that, but left to see to her own class. Once she was gone, the English teacher turned back to her pupils, the very picture of serenity. "A hundred-meter-tall radioactive dinosaur is coming right for us. I'm sure you all know what to do."

"We do?" Michiko asked.

"Run for the hills and have a nice life," Yukari said sunnily, "'Cause I've just retired!"

_Zoom!_

"Wow…" Ozaki commented inanely as the papers settled in Yukari's wake. "I've never seen anybody in heels run like that."

* * *

Space Godzilla was, of course, on hand to protect Tokyo. He met his Earthling counterpart in an evacuated suburb, kilometers from the downtown to which he was mysteriously drawn. In ages past, the Monster King might have paused to size up his larger foe, but now he just wasn't in the mood. As soon as the space monster's feet touched ground, a vicious blue beam was lashing towards his face. It was countered by SG's own blue-red-gold deathray, and when they struck…

Nobody ever saw it directly because the burst of light momentarily overloaded every camera that was trained on it, though evacuees received a polite reminder to hurry the hell up in the form of a multicolored mushroom-cloud rising over the skyline.

The pay-per-view people had _finally _gotten their act together, but were swiftly finding that not many viewers were ghoulish enough to enjoy the spectacle of the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of real people getting flattened by a duel of reptilian juggernauts. It was a good thing they were there and on the job, though, as this was a battle worth recording.

Both monsters had been knocked into a crouch on opposite sides of a vast, scorched crater. Godzilla straightened and shook his great head groggily, seeming to mutter, _Okay, let's not try _that_ again… _Space Godzilla rose on the other side and readied himself to attack—then barked in surprise as the smaller beast slammed into him.

It almost looked like a gigantic, ponderous boxing match, the Ultraheavyweight Championship of the world, both beasts weaving and dodging, fighting entirely with their meaty fists and stubby claws. Over the course of their battle, it became clear that Godzilla was actually stronger than his opponent, easily driving Big Blue back towards downtown Tokyo and the mothership above.

Nothing on Earth could stop the King of the Monsters.

High above the Earth, however, a satellite was slowly gathering power. It had been in geosynchronous orbit over Tokyo for over a year now, and those that built it hoped it would remain cold and dormant until the happy day that it was no longer needed and burned out of the sky. But now the mysterious and arcane instruments within it were humming to blasphemous life and horrible energies were twisting beneath its spire as small jets slowly maneuvered it into position.

Soon Japan would feel the wrath of the untested and cataclysmically powerful Dimension Tide!

* * *

"I'm sorry," Osamu spread his hands. "I don't know anything about why they'd want to kidnap Ayumu and Xandra. If they just took Ayumu, I'd say it was because of the forged release, or Xandra… um, she was on Earth legally, right?"

"Of _course _she was on Earth legally, you dolt!" Kaori snapped, wrestling one end of a table into position. "Help me with this!"

"Right…" Osamu took the other end and squared it off. She'd been rearranging the interior of the store when he arrived and hadn't bothered to explain exactly how or why even as she demanded his aid. She was obviously a woman on a mission. "I don't know what to tell you."

"All this conspiracy, cloak-and-dagger stuff is supposed to be _your _thing!"

"Well I don't think you want a half-baked theory, and I…" Osamu's cell-phone rang. "Hold on a moment." Kaori crossed her arms and tapped her foot angrily. She sure was in a lousy mood… but then, being tasered while your friends are stolen away would have that effect on you, wouldn't it?

The interior of _Olhos Do Ceu _was mostly empty; the light shelving had been pushed to the walls when he got there and now Kaori had enlisted him to help move the heavier tables into a strange kind of pattern on the broad floor. She must have cleared the tabletops before he arrived as well, though there was a pack of chalk sitting on one of them. He didn't like the look of that one bit.

"What?" Osamu straightened. "You're going to… _what?_ No! Y-you're kidding! You mean… I was _right?_ Yes! Yes, I'll… right away!" He clicked the phone off.

"Who was that?"

"It was my boy at the Pentagon."

"Wh-? You have a boy at the…?"

Osamu put his hands on his hips. "Come on, Kaori! Did ever occur to you… _just once_ did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that I _might_ occasionally have an idea of what I'm talking about?"

"Uh… no." Kaori looked away. "To be honest, I just called you because I was completely desperate."

He slapped his forehead. "Well, we don't have time for this now. They're… the Americans are going to use Dimension Tide! I—shit, who should I warn? I can't tell the government…"

"Most everyone's evacuating because of Godzilla, anyway."

"But there are people still relying on the old shelters! They'll be killed!" Osamu looked around. "I'm… responsible for…!"

"Calm down." Kaori took his shoulders and looked up at him firmly.

"I… but…!"

"Stop it. Don't waste the time you _do_ have."

Osamu shook his head rapidly. "O-okay. I… I need somebody who's in a position to help them, yet wouldn't necessarily alert, you know, the military guys. Or should I even care about that? I, I mean, those people didn't choose to sacrifice themselves for the cause of getting rid of the Gaijin! But to waste this chance… No… I don't know…" He was almost whimpering by this point.

Kaori tried to keep him thinking. "Who would even believe you?"

"That's _another_ factor. Who do we know that has any clout at all, yet wouldn't just brush me off as a crazy…" Osamu's eyes widened. "Oh."

Kaori caught on instantly. "She'll hate you."

"Yeah, with Tokyo about to be eaten by a friggin' singularity, that's what I'm _really _worried about," he replied, dialing rapidly.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a far-off suburb, untouched by the titanic duel and not threatened by the dread weapon, Kagura slept. Once whole prefectures would be emptied at the mere approach of a kaiju, but after a UFO invasion and the installation of giant monster sentries in every major city, people had had a chance to get used to the idea. Now a reasonably broad area had been cleared out around them while citizens of more distant suburbs and neighboring cities were allowed to go about their lives.

Most of them, anyway.

Ever since she had returned from Shizouka, Kagura had been happily performing her post-Enryu-call ritual: a 12-hour powernap. One really starts to appreciate sleep after one spends a long time in a position where one has to ration it, after all. The sheer, unbelievable luxury of being able to lie down and sleep as long as she wanted was just…

But wait! The most annoying, abominable, detestable sound in the world rang out.

Kagura's hand slid out of under the covers and groped over her end-table until it rested on the telephone. After a pause that probably meant she was considering answering, she jerked the offending device off of the wall and let it clatter across the floor. There! If the call was important, then they'd…

After a few seconds, her cell phone started chirping. Damn it all, it _was!_

She snapped it open (it was too expensive to chuck anyway) and gave it the most polite answer she could dredge up, which was "What _is_ it?" in an unmistakably whiney tone of voice. "Osamu? You'd better hope this is good or I will _break _you!" She listened for a few seconds. "Uh huh… Pentagon… superweapon… okay, yeah. Yeah, that's good, you're justified. I'll… _yawn_… get right on that, Osamu."

If someone were standing four or five feet away from Kagura (considering the circumstances, this would probably be a pretty creepy person), they would clearly have heard the caller yell, "This is _not! Just! _Osamu being Osamu! This is for _REAL!_"

"Okay, okay…" Kagura whined, sitting up. "I'm moving. …what? Oh, no, no, I really _would _have broken you. Yeah… keep that in mind next time I'm on call. Yeah, okay, I'm off to save Tokyo. 'Bye."

Kagura slapped herself a few times, mustering all of her strength and formidable will to start her day 9 hours early. Enryu would have to grind into action yet again, it seemed, scampering around the feet of grappling giants to pry people out of their shelters and save them from… what? Surely this "dimension tide" wasn't as bad as all that?

Well, she had no choice but to believe her friend. Kagura snapped her phone back open and dialed reluctantly. "Hi, chief," she greeted, doing her damnedest to sugar-coat her voice. "Yeah, sorry for waking you up. It's… no, okay… hey… listen to me, will you? Oh, come on, Chief… please, I'm not the devil. Yes, I know you were looking forward to this, I was, too… what? Leave my mother out of this!"

It was going to be a hard sell.

* * *

Ayumu and sat with her arm around Xandra's shoulders for what seemed like an eternity, her anger mostly swallowed by worry. Even with Gathra flapping reassuringly on her shoulder and the vile dust at bay, the Xian girl was in a desperate state, trembling, eyes wide and empty.

"You okay?" Ayumu asked softly.

Xandra slowly nodded.

"You know, it kinda looks like snow…" Ayumu mused. "Like…"

"It's a corpse," Xandra interrupted in a brittle voice. "Please, don't."

"Yeah, but he's right here…"

"He is? Where?" Xandra quavered. "I don't see anything, Ayumu! What are you _talking _about? What's happening to us? Oh, God, oh…!"

"Don't worry, sister, please. We'll be fine."

"No we won't! Don't you get it? It's… you know it's Yukia! She's… she'll kill us!"

"It'll be fine, Xannie."

Xandra blinked and her eyes focused. She almost seemed to forget that she was afraid. "What did I say about calling me Xannie?"

"I don't see a table of tacks anywhere 'round here."

"Here they are," a muffled voice said. "Hey, they don't look that bad."

"Better give 'em the masks anyway," another answered. Two guards in heavy jackets and breathing masks stood outside the force-wall. One tossed a pair of masks through an opening that appeared and irised shut before the too much of the whirling dust could make it through. Ayumu tried to help her sister into one, but neither of them could quite figure out the clasps. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, the guard entered and snapped both into place. "Let's go."

They were led down a long shining corridor lightly frosted with the loathsome Moth powder, passing a force-walled archway which opened into a room that was practically a blizzard of the stuff. Ayumu craned over her shoulder as they passed and saw a worker in a containment suit emerge through the wall and shake himself off. "You guys tryin' to get cancer or what?"

"Shh," her guard said absently, not even noticing her flinch.

"Sure aren't seein' a lot of people," Ayumu commented after a few seconds. Thankfully, instead of shocking her, the guard simply ignored her. They were finally taken through a room where powerful air currents scoured them of Moth and the masks were taken from them. "Why do you think she kept 'em in there, anyway?" Xandra's guard asked, "It was a pain in the ass to improvise that cell."

"Shh," Ayumu's guard said. "Let's just get them to Yukia."

Xandra moaned softly.

"Shh."

* * *

"Everybody out!" Masema ordered. "Out, out! You, too! Lords and admirals, clear the command deck!"

"But why? We're still under att-!"

Masema cuffed the objector, knocking him flipping over the map table. "My second's taking care of that! Does anybody want to get blasted? I can do that, too!"

"Wait, you named a second?" Another subcommander yelped. "When did this—ow!"

"Out! Go wait in the hall!"

And after a lot of shouting, shoving and a few barked shins, Masema finally emptied the deck of everybody but himself, Yukia and the prostrate Chiyo. "You didn't have to do that," his new second said mildly. "I can concentrate in whatever circumstances are required. But as long as you're being so accommodating, would you turn down the lights?"

Masema clapped his hands twice and the room became even more appallingly dark. "You know as well as I do that we'd both be done for if they saw what you're really about to do."

"Hunh. So you weren't fooled, after all." Yukia shrugged. "By this point, though, I don't think it matters _what _they do."

"Well, better to be safe than sorry. What is that circle for?"

"It's forbidden arts stuff; you wouldn't understand. And if you could, I wouldn't give the knowledge away in any case. You've called for the others, then?"

Masema grumbled, eyes panning over the circle and the girl within, then nodded. "Yes. You'll be able to do your thing, and then we will have our weapon with which to destroy the Earthmen."

Yukia looked like she was about to take exception to something he'd said, but then the door opened and a pair of guards shoved Yomi into the room. She stumbled forward and fell to her knees, trailing the bindings from her wrists. "You're _sick!_" she cried. "How did you _know?_"

"Know what?" Yukia asked.

"That I'd lost a friend in the--!"

"So _that's _why you were connected to that spot! I was sure you hadn't been on this ship before."

"Wait, I was connected to that…? Then that means-!"

"_Dimension Tide!_" A white-coated scientist bustled into the room, waving his arms. "The Earthmen are really doing it! It's powering up as we speak!"

"Dispatch Space Godz… hm." Masema glanced at one of the control table's screens, where Space Godzilla was having his face smashed repeatedly into the ground by the Real McCoy. "Do we have any other monsters that can reach it?"

"Never mind that," Yukia put in. "That is part of my plan. I need the black hole."

"_What?_" Yomi protested. "You mean all that Dimension Tide stuff is _real?_ They're _really _going to generate a three solar-mass singularity and fire it into the Earth?"

"Er, yes," the scientist pushed his glasses up on his nose, no doubt wondering who this woman was and what she was doing in the control room.

"But that makes no sense! Forget it! There's no way that can work! Even if they created a black hole and somehow managed to move it, it would destroy the whole Earth!"

"Not so," the scientist countered, "For you see…" and he launched into a long, convoluted explanation that nobody else in the room quite understood.

"But… but… that makes no _sense!_" Yomi repeated. This defiance of common sense (or rather, what _should _have been, to a scientist) infuriated her enough that she forgot about being a prisoner. "That breaks… hell, that breaks just about _all _of the conservation laws! And how do they plan to give momentum to such a huge mass, anyway? And what about time-dilation, huh? That's some screwed up, B-movie science you have going there!"

"Which of us is the physicist here, young lady?" He started to launch into another lecture-- "Out," Masema ordered sharply, itching for his gun, and the scientist fled. "And keep your mouth shut," he added to Yomi. "I can't stand know-it-alls."

"…so d'you guys say 'God's Green Black Hole' then?" Ayumu asked, just before being shoved into the room along with Xandra. "_Awp!_ Hey!"

"Ah, sisters…" Yukia beckoned. "Sit down next to your friend here, and we'll- um?"

Ayumu crossed the room with surprising speed and grabbed her arm. "What d'ya think you're doin'? You coulda killed us!"

"Oh, for pity's sake, it's just a narcotic…"

"We're allergic an' besides which that's the corpse o' my _baby_ you inconsiderate piece a'--!" A red bolt cracked into the deck at Ayumu's feet and she skittered back with a loud squeal. Masema holstered his sidearm and leaned on the viewport. "Why don't you control your prisoners, Yukia?" he asked coldly. "Or should I kill one of them to make the others quiet down?"

"That won't be necessary."

Ayumu backed away meekly and sat on the deck next to Yomi. "We have a thing about bein' held at gunpoint by aliens, don't we?" she whispered. Xandra swatted her half-heartedly but nearly missed; her eyes were riveted on Yukia.

"Chiyo-chan?" Sakaki had finally arrived. Shoving her surprised guard away, she all but flew across the room and knelt at the girl's side. "Chiyo, what did she do to you? Ch-chiyo?"

"Don't break the--!" Yukia threw out a hand, but then let it drop when she saw that it was too late. "…circle." Masema took aim, but sneered and turned away when his second waved him down.

Sakaki didn't need medical training to tell that her friend was in a bad way. Her weak, uneven pulse, shallow, slow breathing and shockingly low temperature were signs that even a child could read. Sakaki took the prodigy into her arms, fighting back tears.

"You needn't bother," the Forbidden Artist said blandly. "That's little more than a breathing corpse, now."

Sakaki looked up, eyes nearly searing a hole through the Gaijin's head. "You--!"

"Don't try. You saw _him_… you know you can't lay a finger on me. There is nothing you can do, Ms. Sakaki, and soon that will be the fate of all living things." Great semi-visible wings spread above her, and Sakaki realized there really _was_ nothing she could do.

"Earthmen," Masema corrected.

"Huh?" Yukia blinked. "Oh, right. The fate of all Earthmen. Yeah."

"What are you going to do to us?" Yomi asked. In spite of the dreadful blow she'd been dealt earlier, she'd more or less recovered her equilibrium. Not so for Xandra, who seemed to be almost catatonic. Ayumu was doing her best to comfort her without attracting any notice; this had the added bonus of distracting her attention from the hideous astral monster that she could see all too clearly.

"No harm in explaining," Yukia decided. "I've been drawing life from your friend here for a long time now, before we even came to the Earth. Now that I have taken all that she has to give, I will start drawing from the rest of you through her, through the connections that you have formed with her. When the Earthmen finally use Dimension Tide, I will hopefully be strong enough to summon my…" she glanced sideways at Masema. "…ah, weapon."

"So we're all going to…?"

"Yes. You will all die." Yukia smiled thinly as she saw the lines between them sharpen even further, and even the wispy, severed ghosts of Chiyo's lines flailed up around the unbroken silver for a moment. "But it will be for a worthy cause. This world will be _extinguished_… uh, cleansed for my people, that is. Cleansed."

"Oh, God…" Xandra whimpered.

Yomi's diplomatic training went totally to waste. "You're mad!"

"Am I?" Yukia asked, gazing at her levelly. And meeting her look, Yomi felt a block of ice settle into her stomach. These were not the eyes of a madwoman… this was a rational, intelligent being that had, in sound mind, decided to work towards the destruction of all life on Earth. Nothing she'd ever encountered was more alien and terrible to her, up to and including those arachnid Oxygen Destroyer monsters.

"Well?" Masema gestured impatiently. "Get on with it!"

"Very well. First things first," the Forbidden Artist raised her hand. "The circle is restored, so I will finish the child off and then-"

"_No!_" Sakaki snapped, clutching Chiyo tighter.

"And what will you do to stop me? There's no way you can shield her, unless…" Yukia suddenly grinned. "Thank you for volunteering to go first."

Sakaki might have made a response, but it was too late. The huge, unreal being behind Yukia lunged and invisible teeth of ice stabbed through Sakaki. She sagged gently over Chiyo, strength failing instantly as her life ebbed slowly away. Yukia drew a deep breath, relishing the feeling of Sakaki draining into her. It wouldn't be long at all, now.

Yomi gritted her teeth and stared down at the decking. There was a way out… there had to be, there _always_ was! But sadly, the great Bespectacled One was drawing a blank. _Come on, woman, we're not even bound! We just have to deal with a guy with a gun and whatever that vampire lady has. You've seen worse, so _think

More and more, though, Yomi was getting the feeling that if anybody held the key to this predicament it wasn't her. And who on Earth was Ayumu whispering to, anyway?


	13. Monster Zero

"So, does anybody here know what our Supreme Commander is up to?" asked one of the officers waiting out in the hall. There was a chorus of negatives. "Hmm… so all we know is that he's locked up in a darkened Command Room with six women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, one of whom is unconscious. Moreover, before the last one went in, we heard one of them squeal real loudly."

"That's about the size of it," another agreed.

They all looked at each other.

"No… no way!"

"Now, of all times!"

"Are we _allowed_ to do that with prisoners?"

"The _beast!_"

They all looked at each other a while longer.

"All right!"

"Go, boss!"

"Whoo!"

There was a round of high-fives and they went back to waiting patiently… and listening _very_ carefully.

* * *

The view through Dimension Tide's targeting system was absolutely _perfect_. The alien mothership hung over downtown Tokyo, a great, menacing accretion of twisted black machinery that might have been conceived by Jack Kirby after a bad acid trip. Patches of the city were visible through gaps in its mighty hull, and in one such gap, near the very center, Godzilla grappled with his space-born sparring partner. The crosshairs hovered menacingly right over Space Godzilla's head.

"Boy, are those alien scumbags ever going to get it!" The General crowed, bringing a fist down on the desk before him. "Prepare to fire the Dimension Tide!"

Naturally, his staff wasn't as enthused about the idea.

"Sir," an advisor objected, "Are we certain that the Gaijin won't be able to counterstrike once Space Godzilla is gone?"

"Yeah," another added, "They have other flying monsters!"

"What, like Rodan?" a third asked.

"Rodan. Isn't he the one with all the laser whips and stuff?"

"No, no, he's the pterodactyl looking guy."

"Oh, okay. Sorry, there're just so damn many of them! How are we supposed to keep track?"

"_Any_way…" the first objector cut them off. "Are you sure this is a prudent action, General? There will be no way to avert total war if we fire."

"We can take 'em…" the General said confidently. "Our MOGURA corps can smash anyone and anything they send!" He was referring, of course, to a newly-built army of giant robots that won't figure into the story at all and you can just forget about. "With this weapon, we will destroy their most powerful monster and their center of operations in one stroke! Let's move, people!"

"No way, man!" the second advisor was saying, "Rodan would totally whip Iris's butt!"

"Wait, who are we arguing about again?" the third asked.

The General struck his desk with both fists. "Let's _move, _I said!"

* * *

"From beyond the point of no return, no life, no hope…" Yukia turned away from the viewport and looked her prisoners over. "Masema, the Earthmen are using their weapon. Be sure to keep us close."

"Damn, already?" Masema laughed. "That didn't take long at all." He leaned over the control table and started talking softly, apparently giving orders to a distant engine room. The vessel hummed beneath them as its mighty thrusters came to life for the first time in months.

Ayumu lay on the deck, staring disconsolately at Chiyo and Sakaki. They would have made a beautiful picture if they weren't teetering on the edge of death. And here she was with a cosmic being at her beck and call, yet powerless to help either of them. "Go on," the Space Cadet whispered to Gathra, "Get outta here! Don't let her see ya…"

A tiny, fluttering mote of blue light before her, Gathra did his mute best to show how upset he was about leaving her. He had to know that there was nothing he could do, that the phantom beastie following Yukia would crush him like, well, a bug, but still he refused to abandon her. Touching, but annoying.

How could she convince him to leave? She considered offering him pastries, but quickly dismissed that as the seventh dumbest idea she'd ever had. There had to be some… "Go help the big guy," she whispered. "He needs ya more."

Gathra obviously didn't quite believe her, but he also wasn't one to stick around when he wasn't wanted. Passing effortlessly through the deck, he made his uneven, spiraling way down towards the monstrous battle. Ayumu breathed a long sigh of relief; she'd managed to salvage _one_ part of this horrible mess, anyway.

"What's that about, hmm?" Yukia asked, kneeling in front of her.

"I, uh, just realized. I… left my stove on."

"A little late to be worrying about that, isn't it?"

Ayumu looked away. "…guess so."

Yomi stared in amazement. That was the _lamest_ recovery she'd ever heard in her life (excepting maybe that "my dog was hit by a car" one Chiyo had made to another alien invader all those years ago) and yet their captor had fallen for it! Maybe she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed after all? There had to be a way to take advantage of this…

* * *

Beneath, Godzilla and Space Godzilla continued their back-and-forth boxing match, neither tiring, every blow a terrific thunderclap. Death rays ripped back and forth across the city, loosing avalanches of rubble into the empty streets to dance and shudder with the force of their titanic footfalls.

With Gathra's arrival, at first tiny and innocuous, the field changed dramatically. As you may recall, in his first and only turn as Earth's protector, Gathra started by declining to fight himself, giving a flood of power to Godzilla to use instead. Maybe he wasn't a Guardian anymore, but he'd held on to some of his old tricks.

SG faltered in surprise as the Earth monster was suddenly coated in dark blue flames. Either Godzilla didn't notice or he remembered the feeling, because rather than show any surprise, he simply lunged forth, grabbed the imposter by his throat, hauled him into the air and _threw _him. The alien crashed down in the Tokyo International Forum and left a forty-meter-wide rut through Marunouchi.

This clamor couldn't have been doing much for the morale of those unfortunate people trapped in the underground Godzilla shelters, but they were being cleared out by Enryu. Over the course of a half-hour, the brave men and women of Enryu careened through the treacherous streets and checked every shelter, coming as near to saving every single person in Tokyo as fallible humans could ever hope to.

Kagura sat in the back of a jeep, still trying to rub sleep from her eyes and simultaneously comfort a squalling infant. The child's parents looked like they could do with some comfort themselves, but there wasn't a lot she could do for them. As they pulled past the safe radius and coasted to a stop, the driver handed a can of juice back to her. "Well, that's it," he said, "That was our last run."

"Thanks," Kagura drained it in one go.

"No problem," he replied. "Just wish we could drink on the job. Uh, sir? Ma'am? You can get off now. See that building there? They'll have food and…"

Space Godzilla staggered to his feet and spewed another ray at his opponent, but it just sluiced off of those mysterious blue flames and vanished. The answering beam hammered into his stomach and drove him skidding through another row of buildings. After taking a moment to contemplate his advancing doom, SG's crystal shell grew around him and he blasted off for the horizon.

Godzilla looked after him in disappointment and confusion, then turned in surprise as the mothership above started to pull away. He took a few steps after it, then turned back the way SG had gone. Before he could decide, though, something else grabbed his attention. His baffled reptilian gaze turned skyward just an instant before the fury of Dimension Tide fell on his head.

"So do you think the safe zone is wide enough?" the driver asked.

"Oh, yeah," Kagura crushed the can in her hand and tossed it over her shoulder casually… never to hit the ground. "We're—!" A wall of air slammed into them and the jeep lurched backwards, parking break shrieking in protest. Both rescue workers instinctively leapt free before it tumbled back into a brand new crater.

"You okay?" the driver asked when the wind had settled.

"Of _course _not!" Kagura stood angrily and whipped a rock into the crater. "Damn it, the _one _time that idiot is right! The _one_ time!"

Crater? Yes! A kilometers-wide section of Tokyo was simply _gone_. In its place was a perfect half-sphere carved out of the ground, a tremendous, smooth-walled crater, perfectly empty except for the objects thrown in by air rushing to fill the sudden vacuum and…

Godzilla stood in the very center, the exhausted Gathra's flames billowing high around him then slowly fading away. The Monster King's eyes opened slowly; he didn't quite understand why he had survived, but he wasn't going to waste time wondering about it. For descending from the very point where the singularity had been before it was (somehow) made to vanish, was the Gaijin's final weapon.

A vaguely humanoid figure coated in rough, bony armor touched down lightly in front of him. Though the beast had no discernable head, four evil-looking dark-green eyes gazed out of the black confusion of armor on its broad chest. It was built something like a football player from Hell, but as if to mock its blocky limbs, two slender, sinuous tails gently wound behind it.

Emerging from the depths of absolute destruction, the perfectly lifeless void: Monster Zero!

Godzilla was unimpressed. He strode forward and threw a mighty punch… but Zero easily ducked it and stuck him in the ribs. Another ponderous swing met only air as Monster Zero kicked him in the throat. Keeping up his attack, the smaller Kaiju jumped and threw a turning kick across Godzilla's face, then continued his turn so that the tails could lash across him as well. Zero landed heavily on Godzilla's foot and gave him a beautiful uppercut that splattered the crater walls with light-green blood.

Before Zero could continue his streak, though, an atomic ray set him tumbling across the ground. Godzilla stomped forth to press his advantage--and a familiar gold-green-blue death ray struck the back of his head and knocked him staggering. Space Godzilla was advancing down the crater wall behind him as Monster Zero regained his feet.

Godzilla looked back and forth between them and sagged, arms falling to his sides.

* * *

"So it looks like you've accepted it, huh, luv?" Mr. Doesn't Exist walked up and sat alongside Chiyo. "It's not so bad, is it?"

"No…" her voice was so soft that anybody who existed wouldn't have been able to hear it. She was curled up on the not-ground, staring emptily into space with dry eyes but her cheeks streaked with old tears. Her body became more transparent as her being slowly waned, sinking gently into blank oblivion.

"You're lasting quite a while."

"How are you… talking to me…?" Chiyo tried to turn her head towards him, but just couldn't work up the strength. She giggled weakly. "You don't exist."

"I'm glad that you're okay with it. All the same, it's sad to see people go… and I rather liked you and your friends."

"My… friends?"

"Yes. Ms. Sakaki is dying as well."

"Ms. Sakaki, too?" Her form momentarily became more solid and she strained to rise. "N-no!"

"Changed your mind? What are you going to do, then?"

"What can I do?" Chiyo asked frantically. "I… I don't wanna let Ms. Sakaki die! But… but… there's nothing I can do!" She sobbed violently. "There's nothing! _I'm _nothing! What am I supposed to do when I'm not even an idea?"

"Well, now," Mr. Doesn't Exist sighed. "That's no way for a Goddess to talk."

"But there's no…" Chiyo sat up and turned sharply towards him. "Wait, _what?_"

* * *

"I thought he would be bigger," Masema commented. Beneath, SG was holding Godzilla's arms behind him while Monster Zero punched the crap out of him. Their victim managed to wrench his right arm free and slug Zero in the "face," but the smaller beast responded by grabbing his wrist and, with a flatly indescribable sound, driving a knee up through his elbow and _breaking his arm_. "All the same, that's a pretty impressive show."

"Oh, he _will _get bigger," Yukia assured him. She turned back towards the girls and walked slowly towards them. "This is only a sort of… larval stage. Once I have more life to feed him, you will see his true form."

"Go on, then." Masema might have been more impatient, but he liked the way things were turning out so far. "Let's see how deep this goes."

"Okay," Yukia held out her hand to Chiyo and Sakaki, then withdrew it. "No, it would be best to let them die together. Hmm…" she reached towards Xandra, who whimpered and backed away, then to Ayumu who didn't respond, then to Yomi, who went "_Psst!_"

"Hmm?"

"_Psst! Psst!_" Yomi jerked her head back, hissing, "C'mere!"

Yukia moved closer and knelt next to her. "What is it?"

"Look! It's Megalon!" Yomi screamed, pointing over her shoulder.

"_What?_" Yukia cried, whirling.

Yomi surged up behind her and wrapped her arm around Yukia's throat, dragging the vampiric woman up against her. "Gotcha! What do you have to say now, you horrible…?"

"_Hrrghrh!_" was Yukia's witty retort.

"Hey, Captain Nazi!" Yomi called out. "Let us go or I'll… choke her to death!" She didn't know if she was actually capable of doing so, of course, but this was the best plan that she could think of. As long as he needed the Forbidden Artist alive…

Masema drew his sidearm and leveled it on them, unhesitant. "Sorry, but I already have my monster. Even in his larval form, he's more powerful than any creature I've ever seen, so I don't really need that woman any more."

"_Hhhk?_" Yukia waved her arms.

"Yes, we'll be able to hit Monster Zero with the control device we were making for Godzilla. You've really become a fifth wheel, and I'm going to shoot you now."

"No!" Ayumu threw herself between them, spreading her arms. "I won't let you shoot Yomi!"

"Uh… Ayumu?" Yomi blinked. "You're, um, shielding my hostage."

"Huh? Oh. Hehe…" she shuffled away. "Sorry 'bout that."

"It's just a shame you won't live to see this world taken by…" Masema grinned and his finger tightened on the trigger--then a trio of silvery lightning bolts leapt from the thin air and blew him off of his feet. Yukia's astral "pet" had interceded, apparently. He landed lifelessly a few meters away, gun clattering across the deck.

"Buh…?" Yomi stared in shock. Three more bolts cracked down around them and she fell back, knocking her head on the deck. The pain was far from her mind, though; she'd _felt _them before. Long, long ago, she'd had a close call with those exact bolts. Before she could pursue the matter any further, the mostly-invisible fiend's head slid harmlessly through Yukia's body and closed its awful teeth about her.

Meanwhile, Godzilla was just getting his legs back. Gathra had rested up and the dark blue flames rose around him once more, his faltering strength was buoyed and Monster Zero was tail-whipped into the ground. Space Godzilla tried to hold his own against the one-handed beatdown he received, but he was no match for the combined might of the Big G and the Little G.

Earth's protectors were finally working wholly in concert. As Monster Zero rose, Godzilla turned on him, drew a deep breath and unleashed a ravening, cherry-red beam surrounded by a helix of madly _VOIP_ing astral blades that simply tore through him, crisscrossing his black armor with oozing wounds and loosing a torrent of stringy blood from a hole in his torso.

Yukia walked over to her erstwhile commander and nudged him with a foot. "I didn't really want to do that," she mused. "But he had it coming. Still… he had one thing right. This world _will _be taken."

"By what?" Ayumu asked.

"By destruction, fire and then emptiness…" Yukia spread her arms, and it was just possible to imagine the astral monster breaking apart around her and swirling through the deck as through a drain, descending towards the flesh-and-blood form. "It will be taken by the Sun-Eater… the invincible Space Demon…"

The armored shell about Monster Zero's torso started to crack apart along the lines Godzilla's attack had cut, a draconian snout pressing free and carrying the center two eyes up on the top of a long, swaying neck. The armor of his legs splintered, freeing powerful muscles to burst free and his knees to snap backwards into their proper joint. Great, hooked talons ripped from his hands and batlike wings unfolded from his wrists, as dark and coated with slime as the rest of him. Trailing ichor, the last chunks of armor fell away as two more heads rose on either side of the first. Godzilla found himself backing away from a creature that towered over him, a repulsive behemoth that looked like it could crush the world in its talons… and would.

Yukia laughed exultantly. "King Ghidora!"

"I _thought_ that guy looked familiar…" Ayumu muttered under her breath.


	14. The Purple Goddess

"Okay, now hand me the sword," Kaori ordered, snapping her fingers. Osamu paused uncertainly, but when she snapped again and gestured her impatience, he handed the katana over. The woman stood just a half-meter shy of _Olhos Do Ceu_'s very center, inside of a complex, presumably magical circle drawn primarily in blue chalk with additions in red and yellow.

"What is all this?" Osamu asked.

"Most of it is just noise…" Kaori admitted, "Rituals made to screw with people and disguise the true sources of power and motion. Thing is… I was never able to figure out what parts of it are unnecessary." She unsheathed the sword. "So, this time I'm doing everything to make sure it goes right. All the same… maybe you should leave?"

"I shoulda left hours ago!" he snapped, "This place is a bloody warzone! But what is it you're trying to _do?_"

"I'm… not entirely certain. This felt right."

"You're not…?"

"But I blew the place up last time I tried it, so you should probably go."

"I helped a… a…? You're a madwoman!"

She put her hands on her hips, not letting her sword touch the ground. "And how many times have people called _you_ mad? Does it ever occur to _you_ that _I_ might occasionally have an idea of what I'm doing?"

"But from the way things sound, you don't!"

"Yeah…" she raised the katana, point down, over the center of the circle. "All the same, I'd feel really guilty if you were blown to pieces." They stared at each other for a few seconds. "Well?"

"I… I must say, I'm not too keen on the idea of you blowing yourself up…"

Kaori laughed. "Well, I'm touched. But like you said, it's a warzone. No sense in putting yourself in even more danger, is there?" Osamu vacillated, then sat down by the door and crossed his arms. "…huh. Have it your way."

Her sword plunged into the floorboards.

* * *

Yomi was on her knees, clutching at her chest and gasping for breath. The astral beast hadn't done much more than nip at her before it vanished, but already a cold, leaden feeling was spreading from her nonexistent wounds. This seemed like a ridiculous way to die; she'd been prepared for ray guns, being stepped on and/or eaten by a giant monster, run over by a spaceship or even heart disease, but this was intolerable!

Ayumu made a move towards her, but Yukia swooped in and took hold of the side of her head. "_Ut! _We're not finished."

"But your monster's already…"

"Well, he is not the only one who needs more life."

"B-b-but… I'm all full 'a gristle! I wouldn't taste good at all!"

Yukia wasn't listening. She placed her other hand on Ayumu's neck and drew a slow, deep breath. "This won't hurt a bit, I'm told, but who really knows?"

"Ms. Yomi!" Xandra whispered. "Here! Give me your hand! Kaori taught me…"

Yomi jerked in surprise as whatever it was Xandra did slammed through her body. After a few seconds of numb shock, she appraised herself; still cold, still having a hard time moving, but now it wasn't getting any worse. She apparently wasn't "bleeding" anymore. "What _was_ that?"

"Um…" Xandra blinked. "Jeez. It's kinda complicated."

"Never mind, then." Yomi looked the other over. What had caused her to come to her senses? It was probably the jolt of seeing the mighty Bespectacled One struck down; without a hint of egotism, Yomi acknowledged the fact that she had a presence about her which made people look to her in hard times. "Can you do anything to help Sakaki and Chiyo?"

Xandra bit her lip. "No… they're too far gone. I-I'm sorry, but even if they survived they'd never be the same."

"Shit…"

"We're done for, aren't we?" A panicked note rose in Xandra's voice. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have even-!"

Yomi grabbed her shoulder. "Xandra, stop it. Pull yourself together."

"How the _hell _are you so calm?"

"Shh! Listen, there's got to be a way out of this. Now that she doesn't have that lightning monster, I'll bet we can…"

Yukia turned towards them as if to comment, but she suddenly staggered. "Argh! Wha-?" Something popped inaudibly, the air lightened and Yomi realized that she could see Sakaki and Chiyo more clearly for some reason. The Forbidden Artist cast about in wounded disbelief. "The circle broke!"

"Hehe…" Ayumi giggled. "Did I give ya indigestion?"

Xandra's eyes widened. "Kaori…?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter! They're as good as dead and the rest of us will follow soon enough. Now that Ghidora is here, nothing can save us!" It wouldn't have been so frightening if she didn't sound so _happy _about it.

"No!" Xandra glanced to Yomi for strength, then raised her voice. "That isn't in his nature!"

"What?" Yukia was dumbfounded. "Not in the nature of the Invincible Space Demon? Do you have any idea the mighty works he carried out before he came to your planet, Xian? King Ghidora is nothing more than a living engine of death and mayhem!"

"You're wrong!" Xandra pounded the deck. "I spent most of my childhood in his presence, and I'm telling you, that's wrong! There's… something else inside of him! He could… he could become…!"

"Even if that is true, there is nobody who could reach that aspect," Yukia said dismissively. "Your knowledge means nothing."

"Are you sure about that?" Chiyo asked.

* * *

Godzilla stood unsteadily, but before he could even make a move to attack, one of Ghidora's feet, knotted into a huge fist, cracked sideways across his face and knocked him sprawling. In those rare moments where the Monster King actually had his feet, he'd only staggered drunkenly and threw anemic, directionless punches with his good arm. By now, the inside of Dimension Tide's crater was splattered liberally with his light-green blood.

Space Godzilla descended the crater's edge eagerly, but a silver gravity beam snapped across the ground in front of him and Ghidora hissed warningly. Godzilla used this opportunity to flail and growl a bit, but he hadn't managed to rise before more gravity beams were stitching him, crisscrossing his tortured body with smoking black welts.

Trailing black slime, the Space Demon stalked forward and wrapped one of his feet about Godzilla's shoulder, hauling him up to stand again. The Earth Monster hocked up a feeble, sputtering atomic ray before a savage triple-headbutt dropped him again. Ghidora folded his wings and crouched over the fallen Monster King, biting into the smaller monster's neck, side and thigh.

Just as Gathra took after his mother, this incarnation of Ghidora showed traits from Yukia. One of them became hideously apparent as blue energy started rising from Godzilla's punctured hide and coursing down the Demon's triple throats. Though he'd made a magnificent showing, Earth's champion had fallen.

But as Godzilla neared death, the victor released him and took a step back, blue light swirling around his mouths and dissipating. For the first time in his terrible existence, the Sun-Eater… _hesitated.

* * *

_

"No," Yukia said. "I didn't just hear that. You--you're dead!"

"I'm sorry, but it looks like I'm not." Chiyo rose to a crouch and caught Sakaki as she fell, lowering her softly to the deck. The taller woman gasped sharply and started to rise, but Chiyo laid a gentle hand on her chest. "Just rest, Ms. Sakaki."

Ayumu and Xandra could only stare. Their young friend stood slowly, looking a little disoriented, but otherwise none the worse off for her ordeal. Chiyo was as willowy and unimposing as ever, but they now had the feeling that her presence was filling the room and more. Ayumu could also see that she was, on some subconscious level, the most gorgeous, sparkling purple that she'd ever seen.

"No… no way! This is some kind of sick joke!" Yukia backed away from her. "How are you still alive? Ghidora _ravaged_ your _soul!_ There was barely enough of you left to keep breathing!"

"Yes, that's true. And that would have been more of a problem," she smiled suddenly, but the look of it made her friends' skin crawl. "If I only had _one_."

"Two…" Yukia hit the viewport. "You… you're a…!"

"I am." Chiyo came forth, her advance threatening precisely because it was so _un_threatening. "And the spirit that you've been sucking life from for all these years, the one you had your 'pet' tear apart and devour, was my _gentle_ spirit. It will take quite a while to recover."

"I assaulted a… a… a… goddess?" Yukia looked back and forth frantically, then plunged towards her, arms lashing for her throat. "Then I'm done for, anyway—and I can _still kill you!_"

Chiyo stepped back from her hooked hands, extended one slender arm, one delicate finger, and planted it softly on the tip of the Forbidden Artist's nose. Those pesky conservation laws didn't matter one bit; her momentum instantly vanished and she was left standing tremblingly before the Radiant Purple One (or whatever inappropriately dramatic label would be slapped on little Chiyo-chan's head.)

Even with her rough spirit fully expressed, Chiyo couldn't enjoy what was coming. "Believe it or not, I don't want to hurt you. This… _censure_ will not be because I am a goddess. What you did to me is unacceptable to inflict upon _anybody_, however lowly they are." She closed her eyes. "Please understand. I can't let it pass."

"What's…" Yukia swallowed. "Going to happen to me?"

"It's ironic, really. My gentle spirit is less pragmatic; were it expressed, I would be enraged beyond all measure by you threatening my friends. I would have attacked you, probably physically, and no idea how that would have turned out. But unfortunately for you, this is my rough spirit…" her eyes opened, meeting Yukia's significantly. "And _I'm_ not going to touch you."

"Then…?"

"You have a queer sort of detachment, almost a… a sociopathy within you. You have a firm grasp on what you're about, and you know what you've done… but it still hasn't become _real_ to you. The world is an abstraction; even your own life is a… a number. A pointless fact. Just an illusion and nothing lost if it, or anything else, is destroyed." Chiyo looked troubled. "But the world is _very _real and when you realize this, you'll see to your own punishment."

Yukia was baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm so sorry." For an instant, the room had the feel of a snapping rubber band.

"If you're trying to… oh…" Yukia blanched, falling to her knees. "Oh, God."

"It's all real, Ms. Yukia. Every person you've killed, everything that you've destroyed and undone and consumed… all of it."

"No…!" she clutched her head, trembling. "This can't be…! I…! All those people…! _And now I've destroyed this world, too!_"

Chiyo laid a hand on her head. "I can give you this comfort, anyway: you didn't destroy Earth. In fact, as appalling as your aim was, you've done a great thing today."

"Wh-what?"

The prodigy stood and turned away from her, face shadowed. Once again, Xandra and Ayumu were staring as if they'd never seen her before… and in a way, they hadn't. Yomi couldn't seem to look at her at all, not from horror or shame but from simple disbelief. For her part, Sakaki was still mostly dead to the world. "Come on, then," Chiyo gestured them to rise. "Let's get you home."

She walked softly across the deck and knelt at Sakaki's side, lifting her so gently and with such ease that the absurdity of it wasn't obvious. The taller woman shook her head tiredly, allowing herself to be led from the room while their friends followed, the only sound Yukia's labored breathing.

"So, uh," Ayumu ventured timidly, "Have you got, like, a lactose-free rough spirit?"

Chiyo gave a tiny half-smile. "I've had the thought myself."

"Soy-based…" Sakaki mumbled dazedly.

"Nah, that don't work at all." Ayumu pondered. "More like a diet rough spirit, or tofu or somethin'? I was expectin' an earthquake at least!"

"But how would we feel an earthquake?" Xandra asked. "We're in a ship. It probably would have been a tornado."

"Or a rain of flamin' blood!"

"Hey…"

The doors opened before them and they were confronted by the corridorful of curious Gaijin. "How was it?" a creepy, glasses-wearing, decidedly Kimura-esque officer asked. "Did you…?"

"You're sick," Chiyo responded blandly, then looked around at them. "It's up to you now. Please hurry in before Ms. Yukia hurts herself."

"Before she…?" The third-in-command paused as the girls started filing silently past him. "Wait, hold on. You're prisoners!"

"They're with me," Chiyo called back to him.

"Uh…" He reached after them, then glanced back to the control room. "Never mind them," he decided, "There's still a battle on!" Of course, he would soon find that the battle was long over and that he was the new Supreme Commander.

"I have no idea what in the hell is going on," Yomi said, pulling up alongside Chiyo, "But we can't leave yet. What about…?"

"Don't worry," Chiyo waved her concern down. Somehow she'd managed to pull the dismissive gesture off with almost no bite. "That's already being taken care of. You'll see her again before long."

"What about Ghidora?" Xandra asked.

"Oh, him? We had a short talk," Chiyo answered, showing a glimmer of genuine good spirits for the first time since awakening. "He's figuring a few things out."

* * *

Ghidora beat his wings fiercely, kicking up winds that set grit swirling throughout the massive crater. The sooty, slimy nastiness that had been clinging to his whole form was flaking away, slithering and plopping to the ground or borne aloft like cinders in the whirlwind he created. Slowly it cleared away to reveal the golden scales beneath, gleaming blindingly as the sun emerged from a bank of clouds. His eyes faded from dark green up through yellow to orange to red to a blazing, crackling white that seemed to sear the air about them.

His voice rose from a gravely cackle to a hissing shriek and finally became an awful, heroic trumpet which lifted the hearts of all who heard it even as it filled them with terror. Once he was finally himself again, he paused over the fallen Monster King, the blue life-force he'd drained running from his mouths to spill over Godzilla's chest and soak through his rough hide as though it were a sponge.

Space Godzilla sensed that something was wrong and came charging down the edge of the crater… only to be blown off of his feet by a trio of white bolts that struck him dead before he even hit the ground.

Ghidora trumpeted again and took to the air. He could sense the Gaijin's monsters covering this world that he was only now realizing was his to protect. There was no need to kill the Gaijin themselves, he surmised; without their beastly weapons, the aliens would be helpless. So began what history would forever refer to as the World Burnination Tour, wherein the Golden Guardian flew from continent to continent, scything down the Gaijin monsters right and left with his terrible gravity beams.

An effort was made by various militaries to stand up to him, but he totally ignored their rays, missiles and bullets. He was thinking instead about what he'd do with himself when the invaders were finally driven off; he still had a lot of growing to do, after all…

* * *

The Supreme Commander, upon realizing what had happened in their control room, issued one open-ended order concerning the girls. _Get them off of my ship!_ They were quickly stuffed into a shuttle that would automatically carry them to the ground, where they'd be left to their own devices. Ayumu and Yomi sat on one wall while Chiyo had squeezed in between Sakaki and Xandra on the other.

"My dreams," Xandra sighed wonderingly. "My dreams of the ten-headed guardian dragon thingy weren't a bunch of crap after all!"

"Lucky," Ayumu poked her side. "Usually when your dreams turn out to be real it really sucks."

"I wouldn't worry about that much longer," Chiyo said absently. Uncertain, Sakaki looked down at her and away again. She should have been happy that they were all alive and well, but she had the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Even if Chiyo hadn't been a _little bit_ omniscient (a distinction that only a goddess would make), it would have been clear that she was troubled. "What's wrong?"

Sakaki tried to be polite. "What… are you?"

"A daughter of the Eldest of the Elder Ones, apparently. The newest member of a pantheon I've never even heard of." She smiled uncertainly. "The thought is taking some getting used to."

"Are you still…" Sakaki bit her lip. "Chiyo-chan?"

"Yes. Yes, I… well, I guess you can say I've molted. You know, like a snake." Normally this would have bounced off of Sakaki's armor, but she was in a delicate state just then. Chiyo could tell that comparing herself to such an unappealing creature had probably been a mistake. "Or a… cicada?"

"A little cicada," Sakaki said numbly. She was having a hard time focusing; it seemed like something was on the edge of her awareness that she just couldn't touch. It was something worrisome and yet inevitable… but was it just in her mind, or was there actually something afoot? Was this what Ayumu had felt like?

"So you've held a goddess in your arms!" Chiyo nestled against her and Sakaki, obeying the inevitable pull of the laws of physics, put an arm around her. "How about it, Andrea?"

Sakaki blinked.

"I hope you don't mind. It's just such a cute name! I always thought so, but I was worried about being rude." Chiyo giggled. "I guess there's not much to worry about now. Except…"

There was an interminable pause.

"Well?" Yomi finally asked.

"It's… something that I have to own up to, I suppose." Chiyo rested her head on Sakaki's bosom and sighed. "When I returned to Japan, I couldn't believe how things had changed. My spirit sort of… cried out; any sensitive creature within hundreds of kilometers would have been able to feel the color of my dismay. I'm afraid it almost lured a certain someone to his death."

The others looked at each other for a few seconds. What in the world was she talking about, and what would constitute "owning up" to it? Sakaki was particularly worried; she was once again bracing for something dramatic and pathologically selfless, and it did little to ease her mind when Chiyo added, "When we land, please, nobody follow me."

"A goddess…" Ayumu rolled the idea around in her head. For some reason, it wasn't a bad fit. "But then you're a just a baby goddess, huh?"

Chiyo laughed. "That's one way to put it, I guess. Say, Ms. Yomi, do you have your cell-phone?" (It was never clear whether she was omnisciently aware of it or not, but that was immaterial--she felt it was more polite to ask in either case.)

"Huh? Yeah, they gave it back to me."

"Why don't you call for a ride?"

"Right… okay." Yomi seemed a little distracted but she could be forgiven considering the circumstances. She started dialing with fumbling fingers. "I'll—I'll see if Kagura's on her cell."

"You okay?" Ayumu asked. "You look kinda like me."

"Spaced out?" Yomi asked, hissing in triumph when she finally managed to dial properly. "Definitely."

"That or…" the Space Cadet hesitated. "Sufferin' acute Tomo-withdrawal."

Yomi's jaw dropped. For a few seconds she could only stare, not even responding when Kagura's voice answered. "Hello? … Hello? This isn't a telemarketer is it?"

Chiyo took up the phone. "Sorry, it's us. You busy?"

"Who…? Oh, Chiyo-chan. You sound different."

"I'll tell you about it later. Say, how do you feel about coming down into the Dimension Tide crater and picking us up?"

The shuttle set down near the base of the spherical crater, a comfortable distance from where Godzilla still lay. They filed out, wincing at the heat that still hung in the air after discharged giant-monster beams, as well as the unwholesome odors rising from smoldering rock, great puddles of Godzilla blood and the singed corpse of his space-borne counterpart. The sun was just starting to set, making the sky an appropriately apocalyptic shade of orange.

Just as soon as Ayumu stepped off, the shuttle door whisked shut behind her, almost catching her skirt. "YEEP!" It lifted off soon after, leaving them stranded in this battlefield of giants. "Kagura's going to take a little while," Chiyo told them, "So make yourselves comfortable."

"You say that as if…" Xandra swallowed. "You're going somewhere."

"Yeah…" the young goddess said sheepishly. "It's just something I have to see to. Let's see… um, Ms. Ayumu?"

"Yeah?"

"I can say, empirically and authoritatively, that you are and always have been yourself. No important part of you died on Birth Island and all you've left behind is dust."

"Lotta ten-thousand-yen words in there, but I getcha." She grinned. "I needed that. Thanks, Chiyo-chan."

"Ms. Yomi, I hope that you know how fantastic you look, and what an admirable, strong woman you turned out to be. Please don't burn yourself out; you still have so much to give the world."

"Thanks, but," Yomi's brow furrowed. "But why are you…?"

"Ms. Xandra? Thank you for telling me about Ghidora not being evil. It took more courage than any of us knew you had to stand up to Ms. Yukia like that."

"Uh… it was nothing."

"And Andrea?" Chiyo hung her head for a moment then smiled up at the towering woman. "Thank you so much for everything. I can't tell you how kind and wonderful and understanding you've been to me, and how brave you were to shield me with your own life up there… thank you for looking out for me these past few days, and always." She stood on her toes and kissed Sakaki's cheek. "I owe you more than I have to give, even now."

Sakaki just blushed a little. She really couldn't think of an appropriate reply, and, as stated before,she was one of those rare people who said nothing when anything she could say would have been moronic.

"So, see you guys, hopefully soon." Chiyo bowed to them, then turned on her heel and started to walk away. The ground shifted slightly under their feet; the Monster King had finally risen, and he looked _sore_. A tower of battered, bruised, gashed, scarred muscle, covered in rolling sheets of his own blood, his left arm hanging in a twisted ruin at his side. He'd been enraged before, but there was always an element of glee to it, the beast glorying in his own savage power and having the time of his life giving it free reign. Now, though, there was only the desire to bring down agony—he just wanted something to _burn_.

_Lured to his death… _Sakaki gasped aloud. She turned sharply, but Chiyo was already impossibly distant for the time she'd spent walking, at least a half-kilometer away, mounting the broken edge of one of Ghidora's colossal footfalls. "Chiyo-chan!" Sakaki cried with more abandon than she'd ever before shown. "_NO!_"

Godzilla tilted his head and Sakaki realized with nauseating certainty that his one good eye was focused directly on her friend. A dim question formed in that brutish eye as his lips curled up around yellowed fangs. "Yes," Chiyo answered softly, but her voice carried even to her friends, "I was the one who called you."

The Purple Goddess spread her arms and in that moment she was heartbreakingly beautiful. The monster's spines lit with radioactive fire and with an indescribable crackle it boiled up from his gullet. Chiyo didn't move or resist as an atomic ray howled towards her with unstoppable force…


	15. A Much Happier Homecoming

Sakaki saw the beam surge towards her friend in agonizing bullet-time, crawling along like a huge stream of malevolent, glowing molasses. It almost seemed as though she could sprint the distance between them and tackle Chiyo out of its path, but of course her muscles refused to respond, her breath was frozen in her lungs and her eyes wouldn't close against what she knew was coming.

But when it was about a quarter of the way along its interminable, half-second journey, the ray seemed to ripple. Halfway and it was definitely starting to twist… and then, so close that it must have singed Chiyo's nose, the beam abruptly bent away from her and lashed over their heads, momentarily surrounding them with swirling, buffeting wind and the feeling of high noon in the summer.

None of them realized what had happened at first, but it became obvious when the wind changed direction and they were hit with the smell of a flooded kennel. Godzilla's strike had vanished into the orange eye of King Caesar, who came striding past the girls, big as life and twice as ugly. For the second time in this generation, the Azumi family statue had been placed (auspiciously, of course!) and their guardian monster awakened.

A tiny shape dropped from the hair on his leg and wove its unsteady way towards them. It was Kazuki Azumi, dazed by his long, bouncing ride and reeking of Caesar's essence of 40 yaks. "Found it," he announced weakly, then fainted into Yomi's arms.

If the monsters recognized each other from when they'd fought side-by-side so long ago, they gave no sign. Even though the Living Shiisa was less than half the size of the other, he didn't have any problem with picking a fight… and given his condition, Godzilla certainly _did_. Casting one last glance at Chiyo ("you lucky!"), he grunted and lumbered away, ignoring the smaller monster's braying and capering behind him.

Once the Monster King's head disappeared beneath the waves, Caesar looked around and, finding nothing to fight, sagged with disappointment and shuffled back towards Okinawa. "Sorry, guy!" Ayumu called up to him. Sakaki was almost offended by how flippant she was being so soon after Chiyo's brush with death, but the heroic rescue seemed to have lifted everyone's spirits.

Everyone's but hers. Who could describe the feelings that silently coursed through Sakaki as she stalked quickly across the blasted plain towards her friend? She could have crushed bricks in her hands and yet she couldn't take another step. She'd felt a blossom of relief as Chiyo was spared, but it had immediately burst into flames.

Her thoughts were so steeped in emotion that they could scarcely be expressed as words. _Stupid! Stupid! Why do you have to die? Who does that protect? Fair play? No! You'll rip yourself away from us for fair play? Get yourself vaporized for some twisted kind of honor? STUPID!! Histrionic little martyr! If you've got such a death wish, maybe I shouldn't…_

It would not be accurate to say that her anger evaporated upon seeing Chiyo, but it was certainly shoved aside. The girl was sprawled on the ground behind her little ridge, limbs splayed pathetically, head resting at an odd (but survivable) angle turned away from her. She made Sakaki think of a broken doll that had been cast aside.

"Oh…" She knelt next to Chiyo, frantically checking for broken bones, pulse, breathing… it was jumbled and out of order, not at all like the standard exams she was used to giving, the fact that her subject was a person being the smallest difference. Still, somebody watching could never have guessed at the gob of panic rolling greasily about in her chest.

All at once, Chiyo's eyes fluttered open. For an instant, Sakaki wanted to strangle her, kiss her, slap her, burst into tears or laughter, scream or just get up and walk away… but all of the conflicting urges just collided within her and went _POOM!_ When the smoke cleared, Sakaki was herself again. "Chiyo-chan?"

Chiyo stared at her for a moment, eyes bleary and confused. "I'm sorry," she finally asked, "Is that my name?"

Sakaki couldn't make herself respond immediately. Of all the pointless, contrived, _idiotic_…! But that was the universe's fault, not her friend's, wasn't it? "Yes," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Horrible, honestly," Chiyo sat up and rubbed her eyes, then tried to find her feet. Sakaki stood alongside and helped her up. "Was I hit by a bus or… my word! What on Earth happened here?"

Sakaki blandly surveyed the desolation about them. It was really the first time she'd gotten a good look at it. While incredible for what it represented, she didn't find the view terribly interesting. "Interstellar war," she explained with the same tone she might have used for "light rain."

"Oh… uh…" Chiyo scratched her head, looking around. "Did we… win?"

"I think so."

"That's a relief…" Chiyo gave a sudden start. "Oh, God! I… I don't know _anything!_ I don't remember… Do you know me? Who are you? Who am _I_? What are we _doing_ out here?" She trailed off helplessly, her huge eyes so lost and alone that Sakaki was completely powerless to stay even a tiny bit mad at her. It wasn't like either of them could do anything about her grievance _now_, right?

"Don't worry," Sakaki took her shoulder gently, feeling strangely like she'd agreed to something of this nature long ago. "I'll protect you."

A jeep honked at them from the landing site. "Hey!" Kagura hollered, "You two done _kissing _yet? C'mon!"

* * *

How did you go about telling an old friend that she was (or would be, or had been… nobody was quite sure) a Goddess? Well, in this case, you didn't. This was the agreement her friends came to, separately and silently, guided not by the insidious hands of an astral being or half-baked ideas of what was best for her but something else… they would never know it, and each would doubt and feel guilt in her turn, but their unfounded conviction that it was Chiyo's to lead the life of an ordinary woman was absolutely correct.

* * *

It could almost be said that things returned to normal in the days that followed, but this was only because "normal" was being redefined for the whole world. As the Gaijin reluctantly withdrew and old nations were reborn by the dozen, Tokyo was rebuilt and Dimension Tide was scrapped. Ghidora made himself a home in Antarctica and stood ready to defend the Earth ever after; the Western powers would never a chance get to use their army of giant robots.

To anybody following the vast sweep of word events that week would have seemed amazingly epic, a landmark in history. To Sakaki, however, it was just a little strange. Chiyo had continued to stay with her, at first coming about as close as the Once and Future Pigtailed One would ever get to being a pain to live with. For the first few days she was in quite a state, easygoing one moment and weeping the next, clinging and antisocial in turns, frequently lost in thought for hours only to pop up with some awkward question at an odd moment.

A turning point came when Chiyo decided to start earning her keep (though she hastened to assure Sakaki that she didn't feel forced into it.) Being cheerfully at work, whether by cooking and cleaning around the house, catching up on the school work she'd brought or volunteering to help people displaced by recent events, seemed to do the trick like nothing else.

So it was that Sakaki came home one day to find her guest in the kitchen, wearing torn jeans and a tie-dyed shirt, hair held back by a purple bandanna, cheerfully humming "the cooking song" as she teased something delicious out of the rather dull contents of the pantry. It was odd… in spite of her lanky height, the cascade of hair to her shoulders and the strange outfit, Chiyo looked more like herself than she had in a long time. The three-ton boulder she'd carried on her back was gone for one thing, but there was something else to it…

"Hi, Ms. Sakaki!" she called over her shoulder. "How was work?"

Sakaki would have just shrugged, but since the other was facing away she was forced to answer verbally. "Nothing exciting."

"Same here," Chiyo replied. "Say, may I ask you something?"

Sakaki sat down heavily; in truth, it had been a very long day. "Sure."

For a little while the only sounds were sizzling and boiling until lids clanged down over a pot and pan. Their sounds continued, subdued, as Chiyo hopped the back of the couch and dropped lightly into the seat next to her. "I'm supposed to go back to the States tomorrow…" she started doubtfully.

"You can stay as long as you like," Sakaki assured her.

The guest blinked in surprise. "You don't mince around, do you?" Chiyo commented with a pleasant half-smile. "Thank you. I was just thinking… this is the strangest thing in the world. I've been remembering more and more lately, but I don't feel any emotional connection to what I can recall. It's like… a book I read once, or things that happened to someone else. The memories, they're… colorless."

Sakaki nodded slowly. That _would _be distressing.

"But the more I remember, the more I realize how important you guys, you, Ms. Ayumu and the others, were to me. I just didn't want to leave without getting to know you all again."

"I understand." For a little while they just rested as Sakaki's calming aura began to seep into the younger woman. She didn't want to admit it, but the prodigy felt a little manic when she was alone, like she had to be doing something every instant—was this new or some holdover from before her knock to the head?

"One more thing," Chiyo added after a minute or two, sounding mellower already. "Er, why are your toenails blue? Did I inflict that on you?"

"Yes."

Chiyo covered her mouth and tittered. "I'm so sorry!"

"But it's not…"

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" Chiyo said brightly, springing to her feet before the other woman could even stir. Watching her dart across the room with a strange mix of monkey and cat-like grace, Sakaki realized why the other seemed so familiar. In some ways, at least, she was a child again.

Maya leapt onto the back of the couch next to Sakaki and tensed as if to shield her from some awful predator. That could only mean one thing…

"H-hello!" Chiyo greeted a wall of Hawaiian shirt that filled the door before her. "Er, come on in." This was a fellow she knew by reputation alone: the mighty giraffe man, Takeshi "Jumbo" Takeda! Even after close encounters with various rampant Kaiju, his size made her reel back as he ducked into the room.

"You must be Chiyo-chan," he said cordially, offering a hand that could have closed around both of hers and one of her feet as well. "I've heard a lot about you."

"P-pleased to meet you, Mr. Takeda," she managed, "Likewise."

Sakaki watched them with interest. Blunted by interstellar war and amnesia, she didn't expect the "girlfriend's best-friend" effect to be as fierce as she'd feared before. (And since when had she admitted that there was a relationship anyway?) But even as they made small talk in the doorway, she could see the set of the girl's shoulders shift, her expression change subtly and their conversation morph into a challenge. Her voice was friendly, but her eyes said, _"Let's see if you're good enough for my friend!"_

And indeed, Takeshi seemed to realize that he was menaced. As sweet and mild as she generally was, should Chiyo see it as her duty as a best friend, she would surely find a way to make him miserable. Maya had already made his choice, of course, but hopefully the girl would be more reasonable than him.

"So, I hear you're a florist?" Chiyo asked as they started back towards the hostess.

"Um, yeah," Takeshi shrugged. "It's my dad's old business."

"It must be tough these days."

"Well, y'know. My help quit during the occupation, so I've had to run the place by myself. I didn't think it I was up for it, but…" he made a fist, "I've got the Takeda green thumb, so nothing can stop me!"

Chiyo laughed, very much taken. Perhaps, Sakaki wondered with a slightly arched eyebrow, a little bit _too _taken? "Takeshi," she greeted with a reserved smile.

"Hey Ms. Sak…" he grinned sheepishly, "Nanashi. How's it going?"

"Rough week."

"Me, too. I was dragged away from the shop by this little blue jerk… no, I mean _little_, like her size," he gestured towards Chiyo, who'd retreated to a respectful distance. "He said it had something to do with you. Do you know him?"

"An Xian?"

"Yeah…"

Sakaki's smile widened fractionally, but only Chiyo could see the difference. "He kidnapped me once. Their Prince wanted to marry me and make me Queen of Earth."

Jumbo's jaw dropped. "Buh?"

"Oh, shoot!" Chiyo yelped, making to rise. "I forgot about the soup!"

"I'll get it," Sakaki said languorously and walked away, leaving Takeshi gawping in her wake. After a few seconds, he jumped forward in his seat and leaned towards Chiyo. "Is she for real?" he whispered urgently.

"I, uh… don't remember…"

"You don't remember your friend being abducted by aliens?" he hissed incredulously, "This is important!"

She shook her head helplessly, tapping on a temple. "Amnesiac."

"Useless!" he flopped back disgustedly. Chiyo might have taken offense, but she was a little jarred by the alien-abduction revelation herself; she was 95% certain that Sakaki would never make something like that up, but maybe she'd check this one with Ayumu—no, scratch that. Probably Yomi.

Maya hadn't moved from his perch this whole time, staring at Jumbo with narrow, suspicious golden eyes. He made a move to pet the beast, but it wouldn't take Dr. Doolittle to tell what Maya thought of this. "The roses look good," he commented inconsequentially. "I thought they'd be gone by now."

"I've been taking care of them," Chiyo said.

"Really?" the giraffe-man asked with sudden interest, sitting up. But Sakaki made her return, sitting down close alongside him… a lot closer than he expected, to judge from his expression. "Uh, hi." Then, after a moment to collect himself, "Uh, about that alien prince…"

"Don't worry," she said, leaning slowly against him, "He was handsome, but not very bright. And he _did_ kidnap me." A good point, that. Life isn't a romance novel, after all. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"S'okay," he muttered, frozen by her proximity (not that it was unpleasant.) "So… uh, you gonna tell me about your week?"

"No." By now her head was on his chest. It took him a few moments before he realized he was supposed to do anything, but then he hesitantly put his arms around her.

For the barest of instants, Chiyo's emotions were a mirror of Maya's: _Hey! Only _I'm _allowed to nestle with Sakaki! _But fortunately, as predicted, she was much more reasonable about it than the cat. Maya hopped down and cast a bland look up at her that said, _This is truly revolting and neither of us have any part in it. I'll be expecting you to come by your room and give me a belly-rub soon._ He padded away disdainfully.

Chiyo probably would have left to tend the stove immediately, but she felt compelled out of sympathy for poor Jumbo to try and pull him out of his stupor. "So, um," she fumbled out, "That's a nice shirt. It must be difficult to find clothes your size."

Sakaki glanced up at her, expression showing momentary surprise and then a little guilt. It occurred to Chiyo that the taller woman had quite forgotten about her for a few seconds. Though honestly a tad resentful, she understood; it must have been a novel experience for a person Sakaki's size to be able to curl up in somebody else's arms.

"Finding clothes?" Jumbo chuckled nervously, his voice curiously high-pitched. "Ah, who needs clothes, eh?" Sakaki smiled up at him, eyes half-lidded. "Wha-?" Then he realized what he'd actually _said_. "Uh… that is to say…"

Even though that smile was just teasing, Chiyo saw it and realized something she was certain she'd never known, even pre-amnesia. She recalled odd little hints in conversations, curious blips in the other's reading and, most tellingly, her behavior when Tomo was hitting their teachers up for smut stories. (Strange that all of this rushed back while the alien abduction thing hadn't.) Was it possible… that… Sakaki maybe had a tiny bit of an ecchi streak?

"Are you all right?" Sakaki asked.

"Eh? Oh, fine!" Chiyo giggled weakly and rubbed the back of her head. "Just thinking about how embarrassed I'd be if I let that pilaf burn." She scurried away.

"She's making _pilaf_?" Jumbo asked, slowly regaining his equilibrium.

Sakaki nodded. "Isn't she wonderful?"

"Makes me think of my honorary niece, a little. You haven't met her yet, have you?"

"No."

"We should get together with them sometime. I think you'd love her."

Chiyo didn't regain her balance for some time. She kept trying the thought out, finding it stranger and stranger with every repetition. _Sakaki has an ecchi streak? Sakaki has an ecchi streak?_ Even hours later, when she went out running with Kagura, the other had to pause and ask, "So what's with you? Did you just remember the Yukari-mobile or something?"

"The _who-_mobile?"

"Never mind," Kagura said quickly.

* * *

"…and that's how we got the statue," Kazuki finished.

"Wow," Osamu sat back and looked between Kazuki and Sanada. "That's quite an adventure. Did you ever figure out where the mantis-people came from?"

"No, actually," Sanada spread his hands. "And we're technically not allowed to tell anyone about them, but we figured you love this kind of stuff. Besides, how are they gonna find out?"

Osamu's eyes bugged out. "Like, the agents they've probably assigned to follow your every move using directional microphones?" he gasped. "Barricade the door!"

The others blanched. "Uh…" Sanada started.

"Ah, I'm just screwing with you," Osamu laughed. "The mantis-men were declassified three days ago! Jeez, you guys should stay in the loop."

"Jerk," Sanada muttered.

"You should be happy," Osamu advised. "Nobody will sic agents on us or kidnap us or astrally visitate us anyway, because officially, all of us guys don't matter one bit to anyone. Well, to anyone _important_, anyway."

Kazuki bobbed his head. "Very wise."

* * *

"Forget it. I'm not answering any questions about anything like that," Kaori pronounced, beating her fist on the desk/counter, "I've given up the occult racket. I'd rather live to retire."

"Aww…" Ayumu turned away in disappointment.

"You know," Xandra suggested, "Most people don't leap into it quite as hard as you did. You _could_ be an expert without periodically blowing up the store."

"What? Go half-way?" Kaori seemed offended. "Come on, Xandra, you know that with me it's head-over-heels or nothing."

It was another slow day at _Olhos Do Ceu_. Jumbo might have been seeing more business with the occupation lifted, but people seemed to have less interest in the mysterious and macabre these days. That and the fact that she could be pick up as a psychologist again made it all the easier for Kaori to make her decision.

Oddly enough, though the interior of the store (right up to the very edge of those valuable circular bookcases) had been pretty much reduced to ash, she and Osamu were completely unharmed by whatever it was she'd done. Just as she refused to answer Ayumu's questions, though, she refused to explain the what and how and why of this latest incident.

"Just one?" Ayumu pleaded. "One, that's all I'm askin'."

"All right," Kaori heaved a deep sigh. "If it'll quiet you down, just one."

"If I wasn't around ta carry the egg, how come Mothra came?"

"Oh, that's easy. The proper Soul of Light found it this time and carried it to Birth Island as planned. Actually, we know her. Do you remember Chihiro?"

"Who?" Ayumu asked blankly.

"Never mind!" Kaori threw her hands in the air. "Why does nobody remember Chihiro? And no, no more questions." Ayumu closed her mouth and shrugged. The intermittent (and much friendlier) visits by Gathra were a lot more fun unexplained.

"By the way," Xandra folded a magazine she'd been leafing through and slid it under the register. "I guess they looked at DNA in Godzilla's blood and determined that it was the same creature that's been appearing since 1954."

"That means he survived the Oxygen Destroyer, doesn't it?" A faraway look came to Kaori's eyes. "Can you imagine what that must have been like, though? He was totally covered with acid…" Ayumu shuddered, but neither of them noticed. "The poor beast."

The three had a moment of silence for the Monster King.

"Say, do you know what?" Xandra suddenly burst out, (thankfully) changing the subject 180 degrees, "I think I'll keep this place going. Tokyo needs _Olhos do Ceu_. So what do you want to do about the apartment?"

Kaori made a noncommittal sound. "I'll probably be able to afford a better place pretty soon. You'd be welcome to join me."

_Pa-king, king, king! _ Yomi and Chiyo entered. The Bespectacled One was on the tail end of a two week-long vacation, the longest she'd take after her abduction, and _that_ because the Ambassador had insisted. "I convinced her that she had to see this pl—" Chiyo started.

"_I'm gonna kill that bell!"_ Ayumu suddenly cried. "How can you stand that thing?"

"Uh, I was gonna get a new one, actually," Xandra patted her shoulder. "You can kill it all you want, then."

"Well, I only want to kill it _once_, o'course." Ayumu grumbled, crossing her arms. "'Less you're gonna do some diabolical doorbell necromancy on it."

"Good to see you, Chiyo, Ms. Yomi," Kaori said smoothly, somehow drowning them out by speaking softly. "Oh, it's about that time. Could you please turn the sign to 'closed' and lock the door?"

"Sure," Yomi replied, trying desperately to keep herself from looking at Ayumu sideways. She'd inherited her mother's wariness around people who didn't "have both feet on the ground." Actually, she secretly admired Kaori because she was comfortable working with such people and even more because didn't seem to think of them as "such people."

"Heya, Chiyo-chan," Ayumu waved. "Yo, Yomi! Long time no see."

"I'm," Yomi glanced at her shoes, "Sorry for not visiting."

"Nah, don' worry about it. I saw how uncomfortable you were… I'd'a felt worse if you kept subjectin' yourself to the place. And me."

Though stung by that last part, Yomi was hopeful. "Really?"

"Well, I was kinda upset at the time," Ayumu seemed to float to her feet and did a pirouette, the tail of her lime-green scarf drifting after. "But I'm free as a parakeet now! Why screw it up by gettin' worked up over somethin' like that?"

"But, um, the bell?" Chiyo asked.

"Now _that's _somethin' to get worked up over!" Ayumu affirmed, staring murder at the space above the door.

"Thank you, Ayumu." At Xandra's silent urging, Yomi moved into the store, glancing the various titles over. "Hm…"

"They all seem a little lightweight, don't they?" Kaori asked, amused.

"Yes, actually. I take it you don't sell the real stuff?"

"Oh, some of it's plenty real, but the _dangerous _stuff…" Kaori was cut off by somebody trying the door and then, when it proved locked, giving it a good drubbing. "Stupid people, can't they read?"

Chiyo turned around and unlocked the door. "I'll tell them you're closed…"

But upon opening it, she froze. On the other side, stopping just short of whacking her in the face in another shot at the door, was a thin woman with long black hair and wide brown eyes, wrapped in a flowing tan trenchcoat with a fedora tucked under one arm. The outfit, Chiyo couldn't help but notice, all but screamed "badass maverick private eye/detective/cop etc."

Their eyes met with a feeling a portent, but neither recognized the other. They just stood there for a few seconds, staring awkwardly, until Ayumu pushed the prodigy aside. Her expression was desperate and disbelieving as her small fingers lit softly on the woman's face and brushed across her cheeks. Neither moved as the seconds piled up and tension mounted until Ayumu finally snapped, "W-well? Say something!"

"Um…" the other started, a little alarmed, but then Ayumu collapsed into her, sobbing. With a rueful smile, the taller woman stroked her hair and glanced up to Yomi, who at the moment looked like she'd been hit in the face with an eight-pound cod. "Whatsa matter?" Tomo asked. "Never seen a zombie before?"

"You… you…" Yomi shook her head slowly. Even though she'd been as good as told this would happen, she still couldn't believe it. "No."

"Don't worry," Ayumu stood back with a watery smile, "She's gotta heartbeat."

Tomo waggled a finger. "That can fool you, though."

Ayumu turned back to her thoughtfully, but didn't say anything. Just as Tomo was about to speak, though, the Space Cadet gave her a good punch in the arm. "YEOW! What the hell did you do that for?"

"Yup," Ayumu decided. "She's alive all right."

Yomi chuckled. "Thanks." She was about to say more but then felt a nostalgic stab of irritation as she was interrupted.

"So, we gonna celebrate my homecoming or what?" Tomo yelled. "C'mon, you guys, kegger at Chiyo's summer home!"

"Wow. It's like she never left," Yomi sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I have a summer home?" Chiyo asked.

* * *

As it turned out, she didn't. While the Mihama family still owned that beachfront property, the house itself had been destroyed at some point. None of the girls were particularly interested in finding out how or by whom. And so the proposed kegger became a camping trip, minus the excessive alcohol. (Tomo quickly forgot her dismay when Yomi arranged for each of them to bring a watermelon for smashing.)

Kagura and Yomi each took a vehicle out and the others divided between them. "I can't believe you went and got amnesia!" Tomo berated from shotgun, "Now you won't remember your unconditional worship and adoration for me!"

"Not in the mood," Chiyo replied calmly. "Sorry, but could you wait until I'm on firmer footing before filling my head with nonsense?"

"What a sourpuss," Tomo turned back to face forward. "It's not so farfetched, is it, Yomi?"

"If I answer you'll probably hit me, and I'm driving."

"Aw, man. You guys aren't any fun. Doesn't anybody know how to get baited anymore? Oh, wait, I know!" She reached over and pinched Yomi's stomach. "Hah! You're still squishy! Glad to see you haven't-!" Yomi's elbow to her face set off a round of maniacal laughter. "You'll hafta do better than that, Yomikins! You can't hurt the Takinator! I eat sissy elbows like that for—ACK!"

Chiyo glanced between them, concerned. "Do'worry, they're like this all the time," Ayumu murmured, leaning back with her eyes closed. "S'good to know some things don't change, eh? In spite of all the crazy stuff goin' down."

"Ah. I just wish I could…" Chiyo trailed off in quiet frustration. "I feel like I'm someone else."

"Chiyo-chan," Ayumu sounded amused, "Ah can tell you, empirically and for darn sure, that you _are_ Chiyo-chan. You were never more yourself. You're rememberin' more an' more, an' some day you'll have everything an' all the horrible stuff that happened to ya won't even be a bad dream."

"I think I needed to hear that," Chiyo said gratefully.

Yomi growled under her breath, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. "Did you come back from the dead just to piss me off?"

"Totally worth it!" Tomo crowed.

"Maybe you should do an exorcism," Ayumu offered.

"Yeah, I'll exorcise her right out the car door if she touches me ag-_hey!_"

Kagura slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a skidding halt at the old summer home site. Her passengers dismounted quickly; even Sakaki looked a little shaky. "How about it?" Kagura asked. "I _told _you there wouldn't be any injuries!"

"I dunno, I think I'm dead," Xandra said.

"I'm pretty sure my intestines are still in Tokyo," Kaori added.

"…" Sakaki put in. Her expression was worth a thousand words.

"Wimps," Kagura smirked, hauling a tent out of the trunk. "Kaori, give me a hand with this, willya?"

"Huh? Sure."

They trundled off with the tent, leaving Sakaki to lean on the car's roof and collect herself. Once recovered sufficiently, she started towards them but found Xandra standing sort-of-but-not-really in her path, very studiously not looking at her. The white dragon was coiled over her shoulders; Sakaki wondered vaguely if she ever left home without it.

The Xian girl was in an awkward plight, she saw. It was worse than approaching someone to apologize, it was approaching somebody in the hopes that they would apologize to you so you could be friends again. A weird, somewhat passive-aggressive tactic that was the most difficult for exactly the sort of people who would most often end up using it. "Xandra," Sakaki said, never one to make things difficult. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too," Xandra replied, eyes full of gratitude. "I said a lot of awful things. But look, he's fine now!" The dragon lifted his head lazily and hiccoughed. By dragon standards, this was leaping for joy.

"I'm sorry, Xozzinidschiriticanfranzista," Sakaki continued, stroking his head with two fingers. "Maya didn't know any better, but I should have." The dragon trilled softly, offering another part of his neck to be stroked.

"Holy crap, you remembered his name!" Xandra gasped, "I've just been calling him Fluffy!"

Chiyo sat in the sand, marveling at how incredibly blue the ocean was. She felt as though she was seeing it for the first time, and in a way maybe she was. If you didn't look at the field where her summer home once stood, the stretch of beach had hardly changed, laden with ghostly half-memories slowly brightening and sharpening in the crisp sunlight.

"The leaves will be turning soon," Kaori commented, sitting down next to her. "It's a little cool for swimming, I think."

"I'm considering it," Chiyo nodded towards the Bonkuras in the surf. "They seem to be having fun."

As Kaori looked, Kagura in the midst of being thrown by Tomo, hitting the water with a dull slap. "Yayy!" came Ayumu's voice, thin and distant through the sound of rushing waves. "Touchdown!"

"Y'see that, Kags? I know how to take people _out! _Try it again!"

"Oh, this is _not _going to stand!" Kagura snarled, finding her feet again. "And neither are you! It's _on!_" Her spear-tackle would have seemed unspeakably brutal if its target had anybody but Tomo, but instead it had an element of slapstick. Ayumu backstroked tranquilly away (wait, she'd learned to swim?), ignoring their epic rematch.

"So Tomo knows Judo now?" Kaori shook her head.

"Why does that thought fill me with foreboding?"

"It sounds like you remember her pretty well."

Chiyo took a handful of cold sand and let it run through her fingers. "I suppose I do… sort of. It's all so distant. Ms. Kaori, are the problems I'm having, er, normal?"

"I don't know," Kaori said apologetically. "The circumstances were a little unusual."

"Really?" Fortunately, she was distracted from this potentially difficult line of questioning by Sakaki's entrance. The towering woman walked by in a dark green swimsuit, pausing nearby to stretch. "Oh, Ms. Sakaki. You're going in, then?"

Sakaki glanced an affirmative, then three running steps carried her into the surf and she hit the water like a porpoise, cutting seaward with effortless grace. She'd forgotten how much she loved the ocean and how relaxing a good swim could be. It had been far, far too long.

Chiyo gazed after her, smiling softly.

"It's not going to happen," Kaori warned mildly.

"What?"

"Come on, you don't think that you can hide that from _me_, of all people."

"Hide what?" Chiyo asked innocently. "Help me out here!"

Kaori stared at her for a few seconds then turned away. "I'm sorry, I seem to have put my foot in my mouth. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to find a branch about the height of your summer home's balcony and fling myself from it for old time's sake."

"Huh? Wait, what-?" Chiyo watched her go, baffled. After a few seconds, though, she turned back to the water and grinned.

* * *

Hours later, Yomi made her way along the beach beneath a dark blue sky full of tumbling clouds. The water shifted from cobalt to black as she walked on, her long jacket stirring lazily in the cold seabreeze as it plucked at her hair and pulled long brown locks of it this way and that. Her expression was… not exactly worried, but not totally peaceful either.

So Tomo _had_ been held as collateral, frozen or sleeping or whatever it was those awful people subjected them to. Yomi had always hoped that it was painless, no sense of the passage of time, maybe a weird dream or two and then—hey presto, it's two years later! That was the popular understanding.

But then… whenever Tomo had been hurt, she'd always signaled that she was okay by whining and carrying on and mooching for attention. It was when she was quiet and wanted to be left alone that the problems came. Tomo Takino had not so much as mentioned her experience with the Gaijin, even in passing, to anybody but Yomi herself. And even with her best friend, she'd seemed eager to brush the subject aside.

Not a good sign.

But it was really time to worry when, after Yomi's attempt at "campfire karaoke" (Xandra insisted), nobody was on hand to lambaste her mercilessly. She realized the Wildcat Idiot had left their circle and struck out into the cold (okay, the pleasantly cool) night on her own. She didn't know if this was strictly a cry for help, but it was certainly a cry of some kind, and if Yomi wasn't to answer, who would?

And sure enough, as the sand faded to purple beneath her and the sky became yet darker, she saw a silhouette ahead that could only be Tomo, sitting dejectedly as the water crawled up to her toes and receded. Yomi picked up her pace and drew closer… but then came to a stop when she noticed two things. First, the shape ahead was a little too large to be Tomo alone, and second, she could hear Ayumu speaking softly, though not her words.

Feeling oddly chastened, Yomi turned and trudged back to the campfire. Would she have been intruding? She wondered, without really hoping to find out, what had passed between those two in the college years. The others had mostly retired for the night; only Kagura sat at the fire still, sipping a steaming mug of cocoa and handing another over to her as she approached. Chiyo was asleep on the other side of the fire, curled up like a puppy.

"Thanks," Yomi accepted the mug.

"I take it you saw the lovebirds?"

"They're not…" Moving without her mind's consent, her hands pressed the mug to her lips. The long, burning sip cleared her head. "Look, Kagura. Unless I'm completely wrong about both of them, it's not like that at all."

"You, uh, you know I was just messing with you, right?" Kagura tossed a stick into the fire. "Whatever they do, I'm cool with."

Yomi took another long sip and sighed.

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"You look like you've lost your best fr—oh." Kagura grimaced into her cup. "You know, I never really understood how those two got so tight."

"No, it makes perfect sense. She's the one person in our whole circle who doesn't seem to see Tomo as an annoying idiot. It's not that we torment her or anything, but now that I think about it, it must have been refreshing to have a friend who… _looked_ to her. Someone who could actually count on her, and believed it."

"Sounds like it's her own fault that we…"

"It's not a matter of fault," Yomi waved the notion off. "And then there's Ayumu, depending on the one person in our circle that really takes her seriously."

"We take her seriously, don't we?"

"Maybe I'm exaggerating, but… I don't know about you guys, but I, at least, condescended to her a bit. And I still feel bad about ditching her on the sidewalk when she used to stop and stare off into space. I wonder how annoying it was to suddenly find yourself standing alone and have to find us?"

"She never said anything about it."

"And then there was both of them being stuck in Chiyo-chan's…" Yomi leaned to the side and glanced at the sleeping girl, "Well, in their own group."

"You're thinking too much."

"Probably, you're right… but still, it's no wonder they're so close. And it'd be no wonder…" Yomi kicked a pebble into the fire, marveling at the bleak _Adolphe_-esque-ness of it all, "If I wasn't her best friend anymore."

"Well," Kagura looked up. "If it's any consolation, you're probably _my _best friend."

"I guess it's not all bad news," Yomi smiled ironically and held out her mug. "To new beginnings?"

"Yo," Kagura said gravely, but instead of a graceful little _clink!_, they nearly spilled half their drinks when…

"WAUUGHH!" Chiyo surged off the ground and flailed in panic, annihilating the somber atmosphere. After a moment she sagged, clutching at her chest and panting. "Not again!"

"What… what was _that?_" Kagura asked, wide-eyed.

"Sorry." Chiyo rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I keep having this dream where I'm turning into a tree… wow, it's just… it's amazingly vivid."

"It was probably something you ate," Kagura advised.

* * *

"How ya doin'?" Ayumu greeted, sinking to her knees next to Tomo. "Had enough of the singin'?"

"Oh, yeah," Tomo replied. "My dulcet voice is not for coarse ears such as theirs. And I wanted a breather anyway."

Ayumu blinked. That was about the most un-Tomo thing she'd ever heard her say. "Should I…?"

"Nah, you're fine."

They sat together in silence, listening to the waves scramble over each other. After a few minutes, Ayumu glanced over at her friend uncomfortably. "Hey, you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right! I'm invincible, don't you remember?"

"You're just bein' so quiet."

"Just a little tired."

"But didn't you say you were invincible?"

Tomo rubbed her forehead. "You can be a real pain sometimes."

"Sorry."

"Well, whatever." Tomo rested an arm across her shoulders. "I guess it's just my karma coming back and biting me in the ass, huh?"

"Nah, that wasn't it. We'd all have to work together to be as annoying as you." Ayumu slid up next to her. "By the way, I was wonderin' about your nightstick…"

"Yeah?"

"You used your nightstick to break those melons, right? An' then we ate the pieces. That's fine, but… I was thinkin' about if it's sanitary. Haven't ya busted peoples' heads in with it?"

"No, they have rules about that." Tomo said sadly. "It's a real drag."

"Oh. Well, that's good, I guess."

"And they had to taser me before I was allowed to use one."

"Poor Tomo!"

"Oh, come on, it takes more than 40,000 volts to stop _Takinzilla!_"

"So…" Ayumu swallowed. "So what _did_ it take? You're not… you're… somethin's wrong."

Tomo sat very still for a long time, long enough that Ayumu started to worry she'd touched a nerve, but finally she spoke again. "It wasn't so bad, I guess. A lot like what they say, y'know? Two years, poof, gone. And I had some pretty funky dreams, too. I think you were in a few of them."

"You're… really okay, then?"

"But there was this one that kept coming back… I dreamed that I was trapped and couldn't move, and it was so cold…" Tomo smiled thinly. "Heh. Wonder where that one came from?"

"Oh!" Ayumu threw her arms about Tomo's waist.

"Hey, it's okay!" Tomo exclaimed. "I was just being dramatic. Osaka! Come on…"

Ayumu sniffled. "I dreamed about you every night. I-I missed you so bad!"

"Well, uh, I'm here now…"

"You're not gonna disappear again?"

"No way!" Tomo punched her arm. "Osaka, I promised I'd take care of you. If I screw everything else up, I'll do that, okay?"

The Space Cadet sat up slowly, looking up at her. Tomo met her enormous, sincere eyes and got that old deer-in-the-headlights-of-an-oncoming-semi-truck feeling. "Tomo?" Ayumu said slowly. "I think… I think I love you."

Tomo was stupefied. "But… uh… you… you said you didn't swing that way!"

"What?" Ayumu blinked. "Why should that…? Ah! Tomo, I didn't say I wanted to have sex with you… c'mon, ya gotta _listen_ when people talk to you!"

"Oh," Tomo said, relieved. "If that's all it is, then…"

"_All _it is?" Too late, the Wildcat Idiot saw what a poor choice of words that was. "Tomo, I… you… you were all that I had! You were holdin' me together! When… when you disappeared, it was all I could… all I…" she covered her eyes. "It was like I'd died."

"I didn't mean to… hey, don't cry!"

"You're just the person that matters most to me in all the world! Nah, that's no big deal… you don't hafta care." Ayumu moved away a few feet and hugged her knees, biting back tears. "Not a big deal at all."

"Osak… A-Ayumu!"

"Too late," Ayumu sulked. "I hate you now."

Tomo pursed her lips quasi-thoughtfully. "Um… you look a little tense. Here, give me your back." Without replying, Ayumu scooted up to her backwards. "Come on. Do it _right_." Ayumu sighed and took off her jacket, then pulled her shirt up a ways. "Okay, prepare yourself—for the Takino magic fingers!"

The Osakan gal almost collapsed when Tomo struck. "Oh… I'd forgotten…"

"There. How can you hate the magic fingers, huh? You can't."

Ayumu was silent.

"Okay, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But you know I don't think about anything I say! I was just relieved that it was… you know what? Forget I said that. But… well, it'd help me if you told me how you…" No, it was too hard to say at the moment. "What _am_ Ito you?"

"You're…" Ayumu paused to gasp as her back loosened cataclysmically. Her voice rose to a childish pitch. "You're my Tomo!"

"That's not what I…!" Tomo mentally slapped her forehead. Leave it to Osaka… "Oh, never mind. We'll figure it out later." Sister? Friend? L-l-lover? Knowing Ayumu, it probably didn't fit into any of those and she'd _never_ figure it out.

"Ahhh…" Ayumu spread her arms, letting her shirt fall into place and sagging back into Tomo. "I'm Jello!"

"Ha! Don't you feel better?" the Wildcat Masseur asked smugly.

"Yeah…"

Tomo rested her head on top of Ayumu's. "So it's love, is it? Guess I shouldn't be surprised. I _am _pretty lovable, after all."

Ayumu giggled. "You're not freaked out?"

"I guess I'm not. And I might… I just might… well." Tomo flopped back, shifting to let Ayumu lie down next to her and use her arm as a pillow. "I think you're all right, too."

"Thanks," Ayumu said happily.

"Say, remember when I said we'd make it 'cause we were the plucky heroines?"

"Yeah."

"BAM! Who was right? Eh? Who was right?"

"Guess we _did _make it, huh?" Ayumu considered. "I don't feel too plucky, though."

"Yeah?" Tomo looked out to sea and watched the last band of purple twilight fade. She smiled a little, showing nothing of her usual crazed energy. "Me neither."

**Finis**


End file.
